Sunny Sanya

By Jamie Barys & Tom Mangione

Just a three hour plane ride south of Shanghai’s poorly-insulated apartments and offices lies a tropical island that beckons the city’s freezing citizens to its balmy shores every winter. If Hainan is the Hawaii of China, as it has been so generously branded, then Sanya, with its picturesque beaches and breezy, tropical weather, is its Honolulu.

Sanya’s thriving tourism industry is the city’s biggest money-maker (followed closely, it appears, by a rampant coconut trade). The spate of building in the area alone is indication enough that the beach community is rapidly trying to meet the immense hype. The Russians discovered Sanya’s secrets years ago, and Muscovites flock to the beach town’s sleepy shores every year when fur coats come back in season. Street vendors are likely to greet tourists with a friendly 'привет' and restaurant menus are more likely to be written in the Cyrillic alphabet than Roman, but like most tourist towns in China, English is available upon request.

What to Do

With two of China’s most interesting minority groups (the Li and Miao) offering tours of their lives, culture can be found in Sanya, but most visitors to the island are in search of sun and sand. Luckily, Sanya has no shortage of either with three main bays supplying ample stretches of beach.

While Sanya Bay is definitely one to miss, with its muddy water and littered shore, Dadonghai and Yalong Bay are sandy oases for city dwellers. Closest to Sanya city, Dadonghai is the most touristy of the three. A boardwalk littered with karaoke bars, street artists and local restaurants hawking overpriced Hainan specialities runs along the beach, while rental shops offer beach chairs, inner tubes and Jet Ski rides on the beach. At one end lies a nude beach that boasts crisper skin than kaoya.

Further from the city, Yalong Bay is a step in the classy direction with five-star hotels and resorts hosting stretches of clean beaches complete with comfortable chaise lounges and cabanas. Lifeguards here seem capable of more than doggy paddling and waves are actually a force to be reckoned with, a nice change from the infinity pools and Jacuzzis that dot the resort grounds. The beach for readers, nappers and those who prefer to spend their vacation relaxing, Yalong Bay is island living at its finest.

Where to Eat

A beach town at heart, Sanya’s hometown cuisine offers a veritable ocean of seafood and the emphasis is on fresh here. Open air restaurants are teeming with local catches, and you’re invited to check out your dinner as it swims in the sidewalk aquariums. In between the seafood emporiums, Russian restaurants dole out hearty portions of borscht and blintzes.

If you venture off the beach for dinner, head to Sanya City for the Chunyuan Seafood Market. With more than 200 tables, this cavernous wet market-cum-restaurant features rows of chefs in makeshift kitchens raring to steam up a lobster or two. Grab a chair, then head to the back where buckets of fresh fish, shrimp, squilla, squid, crabs, scallops and other unrecognisable underwater creatures await their fate. You pay twice – once for the food, once for the cooking – but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better price for fresher seafood (a point that the flopping fish in the bag drives home as you transport it to the chef). Independent vendors roam the aisles, offering plates of guotie and jugs of freshly squeezed juice, while roving troubadours are ready to serenade your dinner guests with requests for a pittance.

Sanya has a bit more to offer than seafood, and Haiya is one of the hotspots for Hainan specialities. One local speciality, the Wenchang chicken, would be indistinguishable from the Cantonese baiqie ji, if not for the dipping sauce. A spicy combination of garlic, peppers, ginger, soy sauce and an anonymous olive-shaped fruit, the sauce brings new life to this spring chicken. The Dongshan lamb, known for its dark and tender flesh, is another local specialty served here, and coconut rice is a deliciously creamy accompaniment to everything on the table.

One of the perks of visiting a tropical island is the fresh fruit, and Sanya doesn’t disappoint. With stalls around every corner offering a jin of starfruit, rambutan and mangoes, one can’t be blamed for spoiling every meal of the day with the buffet of produce. The city’s entrepreneurial street vendors have also created a speciality drink made of local favourite: coconuts. After juicing the fruit, they scrape the flesh of the coconut, then add a generous spoonful of condensed milk before blending the mixture and straining it through a fine mesh sieve.

If you’re in the mood for Western food, head down to Dadonghai, Sanya’s enclave of Russian-friendly resorts. For beating a hangover, the Pirates Restaurant on Haiyun Lu serves up full breakfast sets with bacon, toast and eggs for around RMB 30. For a savoury dinner, be sure to wander down to one of the many Russian restaurants on the boardwalk for a meal of roasted meat and potatoes. For the most authentic experience, wash it down with imported Russian beer or vodka. Drink enough of the stuff, and you’ll soon be waxing lyrical on the sea breeze. 

Getting Out

A trip to Sanya doesn’t have to be all sun and sand. Within driving distance from downtown, you can find hot springs to unwind and mountains to climb. In the Nantian Hot Springs area you’ll discover a cluster of resorts with naturally warmed pools for lounging the day away and leaving your cares behind. The less ticklish of us should be sure to check out one of the pools with schools of small fish that eat dead skin off of your body.

The more adventurous should head for the Five Finger Mountains (Wuzhishan), a series of five peaks, the second of which stands as the highest point in Hainan at 1,840 metres. These mountains are sacred to the local Li ethnic group, who incorporate them into their mythology and religious practices. In addition to hiking around these mountains and taking in the breathtaking scenery, you can also arrange to experience this ancient culture up close.   

Getting There

When we last checked, direct flights from Shanghai to Sanya return could be found for RMB 1,520 (including taxes).

Web: www.ctrip.com