The Resort Hotel

After the first two nights at the other hotel, our group moved to a bona-fide Resort Hotel.  The Cactus Sanya Resort is located in the Yalong Bay area and offered everything expected of a tourist comfort cacoon; private beach, big pool, restaurant with killer evening buffet, sauna, gym, game room.  Most importantly, its rooms had air conditioning equipment capable of handling Hainan's 90 degree heat and 100 percent humidity.

 At the first hotel, Theresa and I were the only non-Asian guest in the whole building.  No one on the staff spoke English.  (I know that for a fact, because when I went to the front desk for help, the checked with the entire staff and could find no one to speak with me.)

At the Cactus, we saw the place was crawling with Westerners the minute we walked into the lobby.  Almost all of them were Russian though.  (This makes sense once you think about it.  Hainan is probably the closest tropical resort for a Russian who is looking to escape the winter weather.  For an American or a Brit, it is probably the most distant option.)  To the hotel staff, Theresa and I looked like every other pale, sun-starved Muscovite in the place.  We had the pleasure of being greeted in Russian where ever we went.

Sanya's Public Beach

Most tourist spots like Sanya have two basic types of hotels - Resort Hotels and Attraction Hotels.   The Resort Hotel has all the comforts - private beach, big swimming pool, posh shops, nice restaurant.  It is intended for people who want to spend 80% of their time lounging around, relaxing, and being pampered by courteous staff.  When you go to a Resort Hotel, the only time you need a taxi is to come from and go to the airport.  Think Four Seasons of the Polynesian Resort at Disney World.

The Attraction Hotel usually has little to offer other than a cheap bed and convenient access the main roads.   The Attraction Hotel is meant for people who get up early and spend all day going from attraction to attraction and just need a cheap, clean place to sleep at night.  Think Holiday Inn Express.

Our hotel for the first two days in Sanya was an Attraction Hotel.  The folks from Suzhou arranged the trip that way purposely.   All the Chinese travellers were anxious to get out and see the many attractions - the rain forest, the beaches, the shopping - and had no desire to spend extra money on a resort that they wouldn't utilize.  Luckily Fred and Andy and the others were kind enough to take Theresa and me along with them to the attractions.  (We had no idea what was on the island before coming.)  And the hotel facility was not too bad a place to come back to at night.

The best thing about the hotel, though, was that is was close to the Sanya's public beach.   This section of beach was for the local folks to enjoy.  It is where they would come in the morning to do their Tai Chi exercises and to take their morning stroll or morning swim.

In the evening, the locals would come to the beach for an after dinner stroll or to meet up with friends.   Once the sent went down, the beach came alive with music.   There were people playing traditional Chinese music on traditional Chinese instruments.  There were others who dragged out their boom boxes to play rap.   But the biggest groups were the dancers - big clusters of people doing the Hainan equivalent of country line dancing.

The folks from Suzhou saw nothing special about this.  They said that it's what "old people" do in every Chinese city...and that there were plenty of places around Suzhou where you can find the same thing.

For Theresa and me, though, it was pretty cool.  To see the best attraction we only had to cross the street from the hotel.

The Snake Oil Salesman

 "Snake Oil Salesman" is a term I've heard a lot but never given much thought.  It conjures up the mental image of Professor Marvel selling bogus remedies from his caravan at the beginning of the Wizard of Oz. 

The island of Hainan is far from Kansas, but the photos here show that they have their own local version of Professor Marvel...an honest to goodness snake oil salesman.  His sales pitch was all in Chinese, and I'm told it went something like this.... 

First he brought out the snakes and talked about how deadly they were.   Then he talked about how local folks carefully extracted the venom and how potent that venom was in pure form.  He showed how it would dissolve plastic and burn through cloth.

Then he whipped out a bottle of the snake oil and described how that special preparation of the venom had healing powers.   He made a "tea" by mixing a few drops with hot water.   Good for digestion and weight loss.  (The people who sampled this tea - certainly not me - said it tasted pretty bad.)  Then he got a couple of volunteers with sore necks and applied it as an ointment.  Good for the aching muscles and bones. (Though the people who tried this - again not me - said it burned.)   Theresa and I left the sales pitch before he finished.   For me, I was afraid that it might also turn out to be a treatment for baldness.

Right outside the snake tent was a vendor selling the snake oil.  Ahhh, Capitalism......

The View from the Top of the Rainforest

 The last stop on the tour route through the Yalong Bay Tropical Heaven park is at the top of the mountain.  That is the climax.  All the other stops along the way are just to build the plot.   All the huffing and puffing and sweating along the trails is just character development.  (Just so you're not too impressed,  most of the distance to the top is covered by bus.)

 At the top of the mountain there is a pagoda.  You can climb to the top of the pagoda and see Yalong Bay to the South and the rest of the island of Hainan to the North.  The photos do not do justice to the beauty of the view.  Better than the view was the breeze....once at the top there was a steady wind as if from a table fan.  The temperature was 10 degrees cooler and the humidity was significantly less than at the bottom. 

Worst Job Ever

This is a photo of a professional ostrich tender.  His job responsibilities, near as I can tell, are something like this:  

Task #1:  Follow the ostrich.
Task #2:  Catch whatever comes out of the ostrich.
Task #3:  Always appear enthusiastic about your job.

The Rope Bridge

 Theresa is not very fond of high places.   The Yalong Bay Tropical Heaven Park offered one attraction that for her was more tropical Hell than Heaven.  They call it Crossing Dragon Chain Bridge.

She made me go in front of her so she could grab on hold of me if the swaying got too bad.  She didn't have to grab me.  But then again, I think all her willpower was focused on breathing while stifling screams of terror.

Flowers of the Rain Forest

You don't have to go very far inland from the beaches of Hainan to find mountains.  Well...small mountains.  Or maybe they're big hills.   In any case, the fauna and flora change from beach to rain forest.   It seems that everything is covered by lush, green, trees..except for the occasional acre two that is flat enough to be a rice paddy.

While in Hainan, we went one afternoon to visit the Yalong Bay Tropical Heaven Forest Park.  It was a nice day trip and a break from the monotony of the beaches.  

One of the park's features is the "Valley of the Orchids".  I've always liked orchids, but in the mid-West of the USA you can't very easily grow them.  Not warm enough year-round.  And during the parts of the year that are warm enough, there is not enough humidity.  Hainan, on the other hand, is ideal for orchids.  The temperature hovers at 80 to 90 degrees during all the seasons.  The humidity is pretty much a constant 90+%.  

So it goes that the Tropical Heaven Forest Park is like heaven on earth for orchids.   Following are a few photos just to give you a feel.

For Amanda

Restuarant sign near our first hotel....kept us thinking of you, kid.

The Bring-Your-Own-Food Restuarant

The French have a well-deserved reputation for food.  Your average Frenchman has an understanding and appreciation of food that leaves the average American in the dust.

The Chinese also have a high food IQ, perhaps as high or higher than the French.  That may be hard to believe if you've only experienced Chinese food from American take-out places.  But trust me, the food here can be very good.  And believe me, the Chinese people can be just as demanding for quality, freshness, and flavor as any people in the world.

This is the story of a group dinner one evening in Sanya.   The top photo shows the group--from left to right are Fred, Theresa, Fred's mother, Fred's father, Fred's mother-in-law, Andy, and Tony.

 Hainan has a reputation for having good seafood - the best seafood in China.  It also has a reputation for having expensive restaurants and some shady operators that take advantage of the tourists.  So, the solution to this problem is to go to the fish market yourself, buy your own food, and then get someone to fix it for you.

The entry to the fish market is a long street crowded with vendors selling everything from vegetables to jewelry.  There are also the people there who run the BYOF restaurants.  They do or say something to indicate that they are available to cook your food for you.  (Don't ask me what cause I don't know.)  The objective is to hook up with one you trust and then take them to the fish market with you. 

 The fish market we went to in Sanya is huge - too huge and packed with people for these photos to capture.  Inside the market, the game is played like this:  You go from stall to stall looking for stuff you like to eat.  When you find something, you ask the cook if they can do anything with it.  If the cook says yes, then you haggle with the fishmonger until you get a good price.

This experience proved to me that the Chinese are foodies.   I saw stuff in that fish market that I've never seen before, nor could even imagine in my best dreams or worst nightmares.  The Chinese could not only name every single item, but they could also tell you five different ways to prepare it.  And it was all alive.  The Chinese love fresh seafood....and in their culture, if it isn't alive then it isn't fresh.

 Once we'd finished in the market, we took all the purchases over to the restaurant.  The outside steps were where the final negotiations took place over how the items should be prepared and how much would be charged as a preparation fee.  Every price in China is negotiable.  And when the final price was agreed, Fred followed the cook into the kitchen to make sure that a dead fish wasn't swapped for one of the live ones that we'd brought. 

The end result was one very good meal....as good as any seafood dinner I've had anywhere in the world.  The traditional Chinese meal is family style...many different dishes placed on a lazy susan where they can be shared by all.  Our purchases were cooked up to become about 10 or so dishes.  (I lost count of the actual number.)  Each one of the dishes was perfectly prepared with seasonings such as garlic and ginger and scallions and chiles and other fresh vegetables.  All were served up with cold Tsing Tao beer for the men and fresh made melon juice for the women.

Final cost for all this....just under $20 per person.

Built for Multi-Tasking

This photo comes from our first hotel in Sanya.  Study it for a moment.....and imagine the possibilities.

The Beaches of Sanya

I don't claim to understand the Chinese language, but normally it appears to have some logic to it.  For example, the island "Hainan" comes from the Chinese words Hai (海= Ocean) and Nan (南=South).  Since it's an island in the ocean off the South of China, this seems to make a lot of sense.

"Sanya", on the other hand, does not make much sense.  It is spelled using the Chinese words San (三, or three) and Ya (亚, which all the dictionaries translate as "Asia").  "Three Asias" doesn't make much sense to me.   A tourist brochure said it really means "land splitted by three rivers", because there are three rivers that flow into the sea near the city.   That makes a little more sense, so I'll trust the guidebook on this one.

The tourist-friendly geography of Sanya is the result of the rivers coming to the sea and each creating a bay of some sort.  Sanya claims to have 5 separate bays along it's shoreline, each with a sandy beach, and each with a different character.   During our visit, we spents some time at 3 out of the 5.  Sanya Bay, Da Dong Hai, and Yalong Bay.

Sanya Bay bay borders the main city of Sanya - the part of the city where local people live and work.  This beach is the least exclusive and least touristic.   It serves a bit as the city park, where the citizens of Sanya come in the morning and the evening to walk and swim and exercise and play music and dance.  To a non-Chinese person, this might actually be the most interesting beach.

DaDongHai is more for the tourist.  The beach is public, but it has better sand, better views, and a number of big hotels spilling guests out onto it.  It has quite a few more Westerners lying around, most of them Russian.  It has quite a few more beach bars and restaurants to cater to them.

Yalong Bay is similar to Da Dong Hai in the quality of sand and water.  (In the photos above, the water in the last two pictures may look more blue....but that is because the skies were less overcast on the days they were taken.  It takes a blue sky to make blue water.)  However, much of Yalong Bay's beachfront has been subdivided into private sections...carved up by big resort hotels that came to Hainan in the last few years.  It's a great deal if you're staying at one of those resort hotels.   And if not, there is a public section of Yalong Bay that offers snorkeling, diving, boating, jet skis, glass bottom boats, and just about every other conceivable means of separating tourists from their money. 

Hainan

 On Friday, April 15, Theresa and I left Suzhou to take a short vacation on the island of Hainan.  (That would be the reason for the lack of postings lately.)   We spent 4 days on the island, in the city of Sanya.

Hainan is the southern-most province in China.  The island is located in the South China Sea at about the same lattitude as Puerto Rico and Acapulco, Mexico.  Over the past 15 years, Hainan has turned into a hot tourist spot.  In fact, it is the only place in China that you can visit without obtaining a visa beforehand.  Sanya is at the southern-most tip of Hainan, and happens to be the hottest of the hot tourist spots on the island.

The trip was actually organized through the "Welfare Committee" at work.   Several times a year, the welfare committee organizes group trips to various spots in China.  They were organizing this trip to Hainan at about the time that I arrived.    So I signed up with Theresa to go with them.   It was the two of us and about 35 others from the plant site.

So, the next several entries will be stuck on the topic of this vacation.  I took too many pictures and have to find a use for some of them.

Crazy Chips

A walk through the grocery's potato chip aisle is like a walk on another planet.   Click on photos to enlarge.

The Bride-Counting Game

There must be a bride factory someplace in Suzhou.  On the week-ends, it seems that the JinJi Lake shoreline is crawling with them.  There must be a groom factory too, since there seems to be an equal number of them.

I'm told that it is "the thing" for couples to go to scenic outdoor spots to have their wedding pictures made.  And JinJi Lake is about as scenic as it gets in the Suzhou Industrial Park.  This is the reason that you can see couple after couple after couple traipsing around with the family and friends.  All of them are followed by a team of professional photographers....with still cameras and movie cameras and lighting equipment.   More accurately, the photographers are doing the leading and not the following - staging each pose and choreographing the movements as if they were planning to submit to next year's Cannes festival.

In the past few weeks I've invented a game....called the Bride-Counting game.  It's played like this.

1. The game can be played on any day, but it is best played on a Saturday or Sunday in afternoon.  
2. You start at the North-West corner of the lake. (which, conveniently, is where our apartment happens to be.)
3. From that point, you walk along the shore towards the South-West corner no farther than the start of Li Gong Di road.  (I'm not sure how far this is.  It's a 20 to 30 minute stroll...so less than a mile if you go the whole distance)
4. Along the way, you count the brides. 
5. No groom counting allowed.  In a wedding party, it's hard to figure out which bored-looking-guy-in-a-suit is the groom.  Brides, on the other hand, are easy to figure out.  They are the prima-donnas in the white dresses.
6. You're only allowed to count each bride once.  (You police yourself.  It's an honor thing, like keeping score in golf.)
7.  You're only allowed to count going from North-to-South.  Or from South-to-North.  Only in one direction.  You're not allowed to count on the return trip because you might accidentally count some brides twice. 

So far, my record is 26...and I had to start counting all over at one point because I lost track.   That was the week before Theresa came, and I happened to hit the lakeshore in primetime for bride viewing - about 2:00 pm.  On that day, the brides were fighting each other while dodging the bicycles and skateboards to get to the prime picture taking locations.  In a couple of the photos above you can make out where there are two couples....one waiting for the other to finish their photos and give up the spot.

My lowest score is 14, but that is because I went out after 4:00 pm an a cold and windy day.

Outside the lake shore park area, running North-South,  is the main traffic road.  This road is the staging area for the happy couples shuttling in and out.  It's fun to walk this route on the return trip.  On a normal day, you see more rented tuxedos than at the Senior Prom.  On a busy day, you get to see the limosines backed up in their mini-traffic-jams waiting fordrop-offs and pick-ups.  There's usually some poor older guy standing watch over the parked car arguing with the meter maid that a parking ticket is not a welcome wedding gift.  I'm assuming these are the fathers.  That's the kind of job that fathers do.