Winter Sun In Hainan Island - 海南取暖
Posted On Sunday, January 23, 2011 at at 1:51 AM by Alvin
Hong Kong has been hit by waves of severe cold fronts since late December, resulting in the longest cold spell on record (another 百年一遇)... and believe it or not, our feet were frost-bitten for the first time since the days in England (20 years ago) ! So it was time to pack up and head to somewhere warm for a while. Hainan Province (海南) has always been of interest as the island is the warmest place in China when most parts of the country are dealing with snow and icy weather.We landed in Sanya (三亞) in mid-morning and were welcomed by a mild 25 Degrees Celsius, we could feel our cold stiff limbs loosening up and we spent many happy hours wandering in this beautiful beach-side city right on the southern edge of Hainan Island. We went up the park on the nearby hill (鹿回頭山頂公園) where we had a delightful bird-eyes' view of Sanya Bay, we walked the length of Sanya Bay which was planted with endless coconut trees (椰夢長廊 - 30km !) and had a simple lunch by one of the many road-side restaurants. We then headed into "resort-land" a.k.a. Yalong Bay (亞龍灣) where world-class holiday resorts dotted the entire length of this superb beach - one could be forgiven to think that one was somewhere in Hawaii or Thailand as the sky was blue, water was clear and inviting and the Winter blues no longer lingered. Oh, yeh, for 20 bucks, you could get yourself a set of the local island attire (海南島服), most of them in sky blue color, take a look ! I would rather go skinny...
We reluctantly left the warmth of Sanya for the town of Boao (博鰲) which was made famous by the Forum For Asia (亞洲論壇) attended annually by 26 countries in the "eastern" parts of the world. We took the High Speed Rail (高鐵) and during the 250km/hour journey, we watched the temperature dropped by 5 degrees on our arrival in Boao, yes, cold weather had returned. We were immediately energised as we visited the famous beach-side conference site and we felt relaxed and savoured our time in this one-street town over a laid-back dinner.
Our last stop on Hainan Island was Haikou (海口), the capital where we would be flying back home. We visited the old quarters of Haikou near the streets of 勝沙路、新華南路、中山路、博愛路 where there were quaint old buildings and lots of shops selling dried sea foods (海味), nuts and sweets as well as red lanterns and Lunar New Year greeting card boards (揮春). The "main event" of Haikou was our visit to the Volcano Clusters National Park (雷瓊海口火山群世界地質公園) about 15km outside town. We were surprised that although small, the Park was very well presented with a good size walk around the craters, a small but informative museum as well as loads of demonstration areas showcasing the different types of volcanic rocks that were spilled out many years ago. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay on this island billed as the "Oriental Hawaii" - we shall definitely be coming back !