Sanya... the Hawaii of the South East

So got to sunny Sanya without too much difficulty. Although very soon after my last blog we went back to the train station only to find that it was the wrong train station. After a manic taxi ride through miles of rural countryside we finally arrived at the right one, which was the smallest station I've ever been to. Made it on the train though and after a few hours of beautiful tropical scenery we got to the south coast and the channel crossing to Hainan. I expected the train would go through a tunnel, Karen thought we'd cross a bridge to get to the other side. We were both so wrong. The train boarded a ferry which carried us over to Haikou where the train was then unloaded to carry on it's journey. It blew my mind... I had no idea these things existed! So that was cool.

Finally arrived in Sanya and stayed a night in a rather swanky apartment, then next day went into centre to try and find some cheaper accomodation near Dadonghai beach in the Russian district. And it really was a Russian district. Russians everywhere, Russian shops, Russian signs and translations and Russian food. Didn't get much luck finding a hostel as Sanya in heaving with tourists escaping the cold at this time of year, particularly elderly Chinese couples. But one hostel rented out tents and let you use their showers and lockers so we did that. Found a quiet spot on the beach, had a swim and a couple of drinks and then settled down for a good night's sleep. I was pretty comfy, the temperature was perfect, woke up feeling nicely refreshed. I decided to listen to my ipod for a bit so looked round the tent for my bag... but it wasn't there. Jumped outside to see if I'd stupidly left it there. It was outside, a little distance from our tent but definitely not somewhere I'd have left it. Checked my wallet - 500 yuan gone, checked my ipod - gone, checked my phone - still there... clearly way too crappy a model to sell on. So yeah.. really creepy that someone had sneaked into our tent while we were sleeping and taken my bag, but at least I still had all my bank cards and my phone. Could have been a lot worse. Also my ipod is a very old version which was never even introduced to China, so when the theif sees the retro non-colour screen, the clunky menus and the inability to play videos he'll (she'll?) probably think it's a fake.

Stayed in Sanya a couple more days after that, saw some sights including the 4th biggest statue in the world, an coastal temple with an ancient bell garden and a famous beach at Yalong bay. Met up with a Chinese friend who managed to get us some proper beds in a hostel, which was nice. Had a lot of fun in Sanya but it was just too touristy at this time of year, just totally packed, and the public transport system was a nightmare. And came away an ipod down and with 32 very irritating mosquitoe bites on my feet. But definitely glad I made it to the 'Hawaii of China'.

Backpacking begins: Guilin 17th-20th

My new uni job in Changsha doesn't start till March so right now I'm backpacking around south China with a friend for a while, despite having little money. We started in Guilin, which is a beautiful mountainous city with the scenic Li river meandering through it. Perhaps the best day there was when we took a raft trip down river to Yangshuo - a small traditional farming town in the mountains where we rented some bikes to explore a bit of countryside. Also went to the a strange place called the 'Tiger and bear mountain village' where Scott was particulaly keep to go as we'd heard they released a live bull into the tiger pen as a visitor attraction. They'd stopped doing that apparently, but we were subjected to some disturbing performances invloving tigers jumping through fire hoops, walking over people,and one riding a horse, plus bears riding bikes, walking on hind legs with trumpets, and some other equally depressing (but weirdly mesmorising) animal stunts. Guilin is a beautiful place and I'd highly recommend it. The mountain formations are like nothing I've seen before - I uploaded Guilin's depiction on the 20 yuan note to give an idea. Right now I'm in a town right on the south coast waiting for a train to Sanya on Hainan island. This place is crazy. It's just a small town with palm trees everywhere, street sellers, apartment blocks and little else. Asked a taxi driver if he knew a good internet cafe (yep in Chinese) and now I'm here. Can't wait to get to Sanya - it's just a small, chilled tropical town with some awesome white sand beaches. We're kind of near Vietnam now and it shows, so different to central China where I've spent most of my time. We're not really planning where we go much, just goin from city to city, hostel to hostel and wherever sounds good. So glad I came south, so warm here!

New Year's and sacred mountains

So for New Year's we got our first three day weekend! We decided to visit the nearby Hengshan mountain, which is one of China's five sacred mountains. Our planned day trip turned out to be far more of an odyssey. I went with 4 of the other interns and I think we were all taken aback by the vast scale and beauty of the place. I was just expecting a little ol' mountain with a couple of ancient temples on it maybe, but this mountain was made up of several ranges with 72 peaks with maybe 100 or more ancient temples, shrines, pools and sites perched on mountainsides and embedded in thick forest. It was massive. When we arrived we found that the last bus home was 4pm so we realised we'd have to stay the night if we wanted to see anything at all. We heard that there was a hotel at the top of the highest peak (1,290m up) so we headed straight for there. We did a lot of walking, took a bus up a bit, then a cable car, then some more walking on ancient stone steps and finally got to the top in time to watch the sun set from a Shaolin temple perched on the peak. 

It was so cold by this point and I wasn't prepared for it - there were still patches of lingering snow towards the top. We found a couple of hotel rooms - 3 beds between 5 cos we didn't have much money with us - and found a little empty restaurant to eat in. After the meal we just sat in our shabby, unheated hotel room, huddled in blankets and drinking lots of beer to try and get a bit of an alcohol jacket. Jeez it was cold. We got maybe a few hours sleep and then at 6 headed to the nearby Sunrise Platform to watch the sunrise above distant mountain ranges. The skies were so clear at that height and watching the sun gradually come up was unbelievable. We spent that day slowly meandering down the mountain and trying to take in as many temples and other sites as we could. A lot of the sacred places were build of an amazing white stone and nestled in the forest they looked straight out of Lord of the Rings or something. Finally we got a rickety bus home and arrived back feeling tired, filthy but pretty good. Definitely a memorable New Year's...