Mountain scenery in Sanya

Spring Festival is just around the corner, and from east to west, north to south, folks all over China are checking their calenders and making travel plans. Whether it be to visit the homestead or sink into some body of tropical water, Chinese New Year is a time to get away from the day-to-day, and if you haven't yet planned your Chinese New Year getaway, there are still great China flight and hotel deals to be had on Ctrip. In the meantime, read on for one China traveler's tale of a journey south last winter.>>>

Hainan Island is one of the cheaper destinations to travel to this Spring Festival, and that's good news for those of us who want to escape the dreary cold weather that reigns almost everywhere across central and northern China. On my search for China destinations for under RMB 5,000, I found a round-trip flight to Sanya for about RMB 3,500, which made me want to repeat an arduous yet awesome trip I took last winter.

Let me try to paint a picture for you of my Sanya vacation last year:

It was January 8. Classes had just finished at the University of Science and (lack of) Technology where I worked, and my boyfriend and I figured the coast would be clear to head from Ganzhou to Hainan, since Spring Festival wasn't until February 23. We were wrong. By the time we got to the Guangzhou train station there were already 5-10 hour long lines and the natives were getting rowdy. It didn't take long until we reached our queuing limit and gave up on the crammed station.

Picture the "You wanna buy a watch?" trope from movies

Unsure of our next step, we were approached by one of the never-far-away touts who opened his trench coat and pulled out a collection of Hainan brochures. Desperate times called for desperate measures and we followed him to his office to find loads of students and migrant workers in the same situation: ticket-less and desperate. After some hard bargaining, walking away and a dramatic chase scene, we finally got our tickets down to a reasonable price (just RMB 150 each including a 1.5-hour ferry ride from Haian (Hǎi'ān, 海安) to Haikou). Of course everyone else paid less, but TIC (This is China).

We waited for hours until our overnight bus to Haikou finally arrived. It had beds which was a relief and things were looking up... until the first stop at the side of the road where dozens more people loaded onto our 50-capacity bus, followed by another 50 at the second stop. Each person claimed a spot on the ground and crammed someone else between their legs, and all the while bed boards were being hammered into place between the existing rows of beds. I like to think of myself as an adventurous person, enjoying every minute of the freedom traveling gives me, but this was too much for me. With a kung fu movie playing at full blast, various cell phones ringing off the hook, the smell of feet filling up the bus, and too many elbows to the ribs, I had had enough. The tears started rolling down my face, and as soon as I thought things couldn't get any worse, one of my iPod headphones shorted out. It was a truly, truly sad moment, and valuable life lesson for me: things can always get worse. Luckily, my better half is a more calm and collected person than I and after some time the tears stopped. We were on the road again, and about 10 hours later, we arrived.

Haikou. Think Chinese Florida.

View of the South China Sea

We arrived at the ferry pier around 4:30am, and made it to Haikou (the capital of Hainan) in just over an hour. I appreciated the pastel colored buildings, palm trees and coconuts, but a cold shower and a bed at the Haikou Banana Hostel (about USD $7 per night) was all that mattered at that point. After a night in Haikou we caught the fast train to Sanya (journey time ranges from 82 minutes to 2 hours). We stayed on the Luhuitou Peninsula between  Sanya Bay and Dadonghai Bay at the Oh Yeah Beach Hostel (USD $8) because of its non-touristy location on a beach outside of town complete with chickens, building rubble and stray dogs.

Sanya

Never have I been so grateful for a beer or eight on the beach (not to mention some great the Vietnamese coffee). Local buses ran into the more happening part of Sanya and at night we tracked down a little jazz at the Mandarin Oriental and some buy-one-get-one-free specials at the REEF Bar and Grill. Gold chains and floral shirts were everywhere and good fun was being had all around in both Russian and Chinese, the two main languages of Sanya. We took a karaoke taxi back home, flying down the empty road tipsy on vodka with "Take my breath away" blasting out and a Top Gun video in the background. One of my favorite moments of the trip. Who needs to drive with their hands on the wheel when you can clap along to 80s music?!

The seafood in Sanya was amazing, as were the mountainous countryside and relaxed beaches. I would suggest renting a motorcycle or bicycle and exploring on your own, keeping your eye out for some of the island's Li minority people since the Betel Nut Ethnic Minorities Park was all fake and filled with hordes of other tourists.

By the end of the trip we had already forgotten the trials and tribulations of the harrowing journey from the Mainland, but as things came to an end, we did get nervous about the return...

Luckily, the way back to the Mainland was MUCH more enjoyable. We took the superb Coconut Princess cruise ship—a 17-hour boat ride from Sanya to Guangzhou, I highly recommend it. If you get your own room you can avoid being knee-deep in sunflower seed shells on the floor of the dorm rooms (do bring snacks though because the food was gone after the first meal). An alternative route is the train from Sanya to Shanghai which is a mere 37 hours for RMB 500 (hard sleeper). Or of course, you could take a flight from Sanya and cut down your travel time and your funds. But however you get there, and whatever you do, always remember: you're on vacation. Relax. Enjoy. Treat yourself.

Hainan guide
Haikou guide | Haikou attractions | Haikou flights
Haikou hotels | Hainan on the Blog

Sanya guide | Sanya attractions | Sanya flights
Sanya hotels | Sanya on the China Travel Blog