Hainan is an island off the south coast of China. I had to make this trip quick, as my Vietnamese visa had already started.

The journey to Hainan included a stop-over in Maoming, as Kaiping didn’t have its own train station. As Maoming wasn’t in the Lonely Planet guidebook I had with me, this meant making things up as I went along. I got a bus from Kaiping to Maoming and had to check with the bus driver we were in the right place before jumping off. I had spent at least 25 minutes in the previous hotel asking the hotel woman on reception to write ‘Maoming East Railway Station’ in Chinese, so that I could check with someone once I was there. As with some of the previous places I’d stayed in, there wasn’t much in terms of English language translations, so I had to ask some policemen where it was. The short conversation consisted of them confirming that I had found the right place and that I could go in search of somewhere to stay. Eventually, after looking around for about an hour, I found somewhere to stay. This was quite an achievement, as practically no-one I spoke to knew any English at all. It was a bit of a relief finding somewhere that could string a sentence together!

I got the train the next day from Maoming to Haikou. This was a 6 hour journey in the hard-seat class and was actually quite enjoyable. I spoke to the woman sitting opposite, who had gone to Guangzhou from Haikou to see a doctor and we went through some of the places to see in Hainan. What was unusual about this train journey was that the train carriages were loaded onto a ferry to cross over into Hainan. This I didn’t really like, as were were effectively contained within two separate metal containers, but it was over very quickly. Once I was in Hainan I got a bus from the train station to the closest stop to my hostel.

Places I stayed at in Hainan:

Haikou (2 nights)

Here I stayed for 2 nights whilst I figured out what I wanted to do. I had about a week in Hainan, as I thought it was a good amount of time before heading into Vietnam. Whilst I was here I got the people on reception to translate what the woman on the train had written and it turned out that these were all popular tourist attractions, but a man on a bike later on explained that they were probably going to be expensive and not very authentic or genuine. Therefore, later the next day, I decided to get the man doing the painting, who turned out to be the owner, to give me some other ideas. He suggested cancelling Wanning, as there wasn’t much there and suggested that most of the east coast was a building site anyway, so there wasn’t much point in going. I couldn’t leave Hainan without visiting Bo’ao, so I made sure I went there and cancelled Wanning instead.

Whilst I was in Haikou I rented a bike and cycled to the coast. A Dutch guy, Kai, offered to come with me, but he wanted to go to the port first, to buy a ticket to Nanning. I was already running fairly late, so we both rented bikes, but both went in separate directions.

My trip to the coast was a long one. Something that is still not fully understood by the Chinese people that work in Chinese hostels is what constitutes a pleasant bike ride. This particular journey was along a lot of main roads and I had to mix with the traffic at some points. The map I had bought as well should have been called ‘planned cycle routes for 2015’, as it was very optimistic. Nevertheless, after much cycling around, I made it to the coast. It was nice; almost dererted with only a minimal amount of rubbish. The new hotels along the coast line seemed to be empty however, so I’m not sure how much of the construction work is going to be of benefit.

On the way back, I decided to follow a different route and go through the villages. I don’t know how many people go through there, but as soon as I left the main road I had school children laughing and looking at me. As I got further towards the coast, there were more people who were surprised to see me, until I got to one intersection and a load of kids on mopeds decided to join me. Only about 4 of them were on 2 mopeds, the rest were running, but they were all laughing and attempting to point me in the right direction. I didn’t know whether to believe them, so I took some of the turnings myself, until I got completely lost and got one of the adults to show me the way. We parted at the point that I could tell where I was, as I could see the bridge I had come over.

Bo’ao (2 nights)

I got to Bo’ao by bus, as I wanted a change from the train and it seemed to be more convenient. The journey was very pleasant as it goes through the Chinese countryside and at this point it was all looking very tropical. I stayed on the second bus, expecting the driver to tell me where to get off, but we reached the end of the line and there was still me and 2 other people on the bus. One was lost and couldn’t figure out where to tell his friend to come to (as he was transporting something) and the other woman had fallen asleep and overshot her intended destination. What followed was a pleasant moment where the driver smoked a cigarette and we all waited to go back again.

After wandering around Bo’ao for a bit, tring to find a hotel, I went back to one I had avoided in the beginning. This was full, but the English-speaking daughter of the woman on reception explained that they had somewhere else. They called a taxi, which was a motorbike with a kind of side-car and they drove me to one of their friend’s hotels. This was a family hotel and I stayed there for 2 nights.

Whilst I was in Bo’ao I didn’t really do much other than going for a walk along the beach and eating. On the last day, before leaving for Wuzishan, I went to one of the villages that the guide-book was suggesting, but that was it.

Wuzhishan (2 nights)

Wuzishan is in the central highlands in Hainan and so takes a while to get to. I had to go back to Qionghai to get there and had a conversation with some Chinese girls whilst I was waiting for my second bus.

Once I was in Wuzishan, I started what turned out to be a very long search for hotels. I tried about 5 places in the end, settling for the most central and most expensive. I could have easily gone for the 4th one, but by the time I had seen hotel number 5 I had been walking around for ages and so decided to go for the expensive one. It was very nice and I stayed there 2 nights.

During the daytime, I decided to climb Wuzishan mountain. This I did fairly early in the morning, as I knew it was going to take a while to get there. After getting something to eat and getting to the bus station, the woman behind the counter told me that the next bus was in at least and hour and a half and I was going to have to wait for it. This was going to get me to Wuzishan mountain far later than expected, so I walked around outside and tried some other options. The motorbike drivers were unwilling to take me there for the price of the bus, but I found another bus outside which was leaving much sooner. On it were 2 people from Chengdu who were also climbing the mountain. We had a broken conversation in English until the bus took us there. Once in the closest village, a motorbike taxi took 5 of us to a viewing gallery for the mountain. We figured-out that were were in the wrong place and the Chengdu couple paid for another motorbike taxi to the correct one. Once there, I climbed the mountain and they looked around the scenic area. I met them a few hours later and we all got the bus back to Wuzishan city.

Sanya (1 night)

Sanya I only spent 1 night in. It was very nice, but it was also touristy and expensive, so I decided to go elsewhere. I spent a day on the beach, as the weather was amazing and left.