Travelogue: A Trip to Sanya

I've been to Sanya twice. The first time was to visit ht (and to mooch off him for food and drinks). The second time is the one I'm writing about: a trip with my girlfriend at the end of the Year of the Tiger.

We had been planning this trip for a long time, but the destination was actually decided at the last minute by rolling dice. We made up our minds in the morning, hurriedly ate lunch and got ready, and arrived at the airport a little past four in the afternoon. The pandemic lockdowns in China had ended, so travel restrictions like PCR tests and masks no longer applied, which is why we could set off this casually.

After arriving at Sanya Phoenix Airport on the night of the 16th, we just picked a homestay in a nearby village to stay at. Frankly, the accommodation was nothing special, but the upside was that even during peak tourist season the price wasn't too high. That night we didn't really do anything; mostly we were just exhausted from not having slept enough the night before, so we took showers and went to bed. The next morning, after we got up, I took the first photo of the trip facing the room's floor-to-ceiling window:

Sanya, the First Morning

Since we'd arrived at night the day before and hadn't gone anywhere to look around, the joy of the trip hadn't really kicked in yet. It wasn't until the next morning, when we drew back the curtains, opened the window, saw the sunlight, heard the sound of the wind, and felt the humid air, that our excitement finally rose. For some reason I thought of the final scene in Yu Yu Hakusho, and so I imitated that feeling and took this photo.

...How could we be in Hainan and not eat some Hainanese food? So we decided to go for Hainanese chicken rice... search, hail a cab, order, dig in! Actually, the taste of the meal didn't leave a deep impression on me (though Hainanese chicken rice became a regular on our menu after we got back to Beijing); instead, I was drawn to something else. The restaurant backed onto a hotel, with a swimming pool right by the entrance, and beyond that the road, the beach, and the sea. All of it made me happy. Watching the kids in the pool, I felt like I could just drop the rest of our plans and jump right in to splash around in the water for a whole day... But then, remembering that the trip had only just begun, I got that can't-wait feeling back again:

The Pool by the Hainanese Chicken Rice Restaurant

To be honest, when I take photos I prefer to capture calm moods, so much so that I often shoot black-and-white pictures with slow-moving subjects and a silent atmosphere. But Sanya isn't like that. Life in the tropics is too colorful; it was bound to clash sharply with me as the photographer.

With that in mind, c and I decided to head for our first real destination, Xidao.

Xidao

Xidao is a small island in the waters off Sanya. You have to take a boat to get there. Half of the island is still undeveloped; the other half is where the islanders and tourists go about their business. It's actually quite commercialized, but for someone like me who grew up in the north, a small island like this is just about the perfect place to escape from everyday life. It's so different from home, and so far from home too.

We waited a long time for the boat to the island, but everything still felt new and fun, and even more so once we got there. With the Lunar New Year drawing near, the island was full of festive cheer; everyone seemed to be in a good mood, and everyone was also squinting a little because of the overly strong sunlight. As for me? I took my camera and shot every which way: the crowds, the buildings, the little flowers and grass all seemed to suit the scene (or the viewfinder) nicely. The colors here were so beautiful! You have to remember that this time the day before, I was still in Beijing, still hiding from the bitter cold, still watching the bleak, dull, and desolate scenes of winter...

Tiny Unknown Flowers

After we got our accommodation sorted, the first thing we chose to do was: climb a mountain.

That's right, the small, undeveloped mountain on the back side of the island. It seems the military used to be stationed up there, but the place has fallen into complete disrepair; the only signs of life are the occasional islander's home tucked away on the hillside, some graves, and all kinds of little animals. There's a lighthouse at the top, and that was our destination.

Climbing the mountain was tiring, especially for someone like me who doesn't exercise often and was wearing flip-flops. But c looked completely at ease, and even helped carry some of my load now and then, so I figured the flip-flops weren't the reason, since she was wearing them too. The mountain path was narrow, probably wide enough only for a motorbike at most. There were no rides or shops, so almost no tourists came up, which meant for the moment the path was ours alone. No one bothered us along the way, plants surrounded us on every side, and now and then a particular angle would let us look down on the sea. It was just lovely (apart from being tired). Fortunately the mountain wasn't tall, and we eventually found the lighthouse. There were trees of all kinds I couldn't name growing around it, but through the gaps you could still see the surface of the sea and the golden glow of the sun. I quickly turned on my camera and pressed the shutter, which I suppose counts as having "been there"!

c, Partway Up the Mountain

The Sea Beyond the Trees

By the time we got down it was almost nightfall. Of course we weren't going to give up that humid, warm atmosphere, so after a casual dinner we started wandering all over the island. Inland, where the islanders lived, was very quiet; by the sea it was windy and noisy, and far off to the north we could see Sanya's Tianya District. It suddenly struck me that the place we were on wasn't connected to the mainland over there, but just as I was starting to work up some feelings about it, the noise of diners drinking broke in. Looking around, there were also people drumming up business, people setting off fireworks, people chatting, people strolling around, and people doing nothing at all, and I naturally took myself to be one of them, probably because the sense of belonging that comes from culture is more immediate than the sense of belonging that comes from location.

Night at Xidao Harbor

What Came After

On our second day on Xidao we first went to an even smaller island called "Niuwang Island". Niuwang Island sits right next to Xidao, and you can drive there along the road. The place was covered in reefs, and the scenery wasn't really any different from any other small island; once in a while you could see in the distance tiny fishing boats and tourists out on water sports. After c and I walked the loop, we went back to Xidao, and since we hadn't planned on spending another night there, once we'd worked out the rest of our itinerary we got ready to take the boat off. Plenty of people were leaving the island around that time. While we were waiting in line to board, a few beams of light to the west pierced through the clouds and struck the surface of the sea. I quickly broke out of the line to press the shutter, and ended up taking the photo I was most pleased with from the whole trip:

Nature

After that we went back to downtown Tianya District and immediately threw ourselves into back alleys and neon-lit streets, eating and drinking our way through. The Wanghao Seafood Restaurant at Shengli Shopping Plaza was really good (I didn't bring my camera, so I couldn't take photos), it's just that winter is peak tourist season in Sanya, and the prices were much higher than usual. The qingbuliang at any random shop was also great. I thought to myself, I really do like modern civilized life: food, drink, internet, electricity. Even going back to the hotel and lying around in an air-conditioned room watching Rural Love Story counts as enjoying yourself (we really did watch it).

Our next breakfast was actually at a Lawson convenience store. The store had only two seats, and the table still had the chocolate milk a kid had spilled there earlier; through the window directly opposite the seats you could see an intersection that had a quite dated feel. To the left was a narrow alley with heavy foot traffic; to the right was the gate of some residential complex, and everywhere you looked there were ads stuck and hung up: room rentals, tutoring, beauty services. After all the isolation of life during the pandemic, I found myself a little nostalgic for this kind of human crowding.

After that came the water park, the aquarium, more eating and drinking, and more walking. We tried hard to remember more of it (which is why I started bringing the camera to meals after that): the look of the shopping malls, the mood while shopping, the harsh sunlight, the gentle nights. Thankfully the water park was fun, thankfully the food in Sanya was delicious, and thankfully c and I both took each other seriously.

We had a flight back to Beijing at noon on the 20th, so on the evening of the 19th we still had plenty of time to explore freely. We wandered through a very crowded market, went for Wanghao Seafood again (a different branch, where it turned out the mantis shrimp weren't as big as at the previous one), visited the underground shopping street, and finally took a walk by the sea. We were still happy, but our mood had grown calmer, and the photos I took seemed softer and softer; still, I think there might be more to travel than this, since there's also the kind of life where I don't have to lift the camera.

Jellyfish at Atlantis Aquarium

(Not That Big) Mantis Shrimp

Sanya, the Last Night