Wrapping It Up - Miscellaneous Images of Hainan

The trip to Hainan lasted only four days....but I will drag it out forever in these postings if I'm not careful.  So here are a few random images to wrap up the story.   First of all, tropical fruit.  Above is Andy posing with an underage bunch of bananas.  Below, are pineapple plants.

 

Let's stay with the agriculture theme.  We'll move from gardening to livestock.

Above is the poultry market in Sanya (just behind the fishmarket).  You know the chicken is fresh because it's still clucking when you choose your bird.  You can take it home alive, or they will kill it, gut it, and pluck it for you while you wait.  Below, fresh chicken feet on display in the market.  (Chicken feet are hugely popular as finger food - you brown them in oil, then steam them to plump them up, and then you glaze them with Chinese barbecue sauce.) 

 Below, a statue of a boy riding a water buffalo.

 Below, a real water buffalo grazing in a rice paddy.

Below, modern boats for recreation.

 Below, traditional boats for the fisherman.

 

 Finally, we end with a couple of photos of fast food shops at the beach.  The stand below is selling grilled, skewered seafood and vegetables.  Nothing like fish on a stick for the hungry surfer.

And below are the ubiquitous coconuts of Hainan.  Everywhere you go, you will find a stand selling these as a drink.   You pay the man (or lady) 10 yuan and they whip out a machete, whack away the husk, stab a hole into the center, and then stick a straw in so you can suck out the coconut water.

It's actually a pretty refreshing drink.  And not just a tourist thing.  Theresa and I flagged down a taxi one afternoon to go to Dadaon Hai Beach.   As we were going through town, the taxi driver said something in Chinese and then stopped the cab in the middle of the road and got out in a hurry.  There were no bushes around, so he obviously was not going to the taxi-driver's-bathroom.  I was beginning to worry that we'd just learned the Chinese words for "car" and "explode".  Then he jumped back in the car with a coconut.  He whipped the car back into gear and drove to the beach, sucking the liquid out of a coconut the whole time.