Dongjiao Coconut planation- & Hainan
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2009
1
28
146
Trip End
Ongoing
Dongjiao, Hainan Province, China
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Our plan was to sleep on the beach for a couple of days ad explore the plantation, so we packed our small bags with the vital equipment, mosquito net, bug sheet and a few clothes. it would e interesting to see what little stuff you can survive with, after lugging a huge bag around.
Getting to the plantation is alot easier than you expect, you need to get to the east bus station, from our hostel (banana hostel) it is bus 44. At the bus station asked for a bus to Wenchang for the express bus it is Y18 taking 1 an hour. You will then get off the bus station you will need to get a mini bus to the plantation. Do this you need to cross over to the opposite side of the station and wait. Sooner or later a mini-us will come along with the symbols matching the coconut plantation. it is a good idea to have this written in Chinese symbols to show the driver when getting on. This bus costs 7.5Y and takes you over the river and deep into the plantation taking one hour.
Once we got to the plantation we had people approaching us (as usual) asking if we wanted a lift to the beach, yet again they lied telling us the beach is in the wrong place jsut so we get a lift with them. after asking some local kids, we found that the is 100m from where the bus drops you off. all you need to do is carry on walking down the left road and you will see a sign for 'prima resort beach' enter and then walk right down the end.
The sea was not a blue and clear as we hoped but the scenery was beautiful. We walked along the beach to find the best spot to pitch up for the night. Being a coconut plantation there are no bamboo trees to build the structure for our net, Our plan started to fizzle away the further we walked, as the was no suitable area to sleep on. We couldn't just sleep on the beach as there are hundreds of mosquitoes and out bugs out as night especially around the bush areas.
Luckily on the bus to the plantation a gentlemen was meeting two Chinese girls to take them to his accommodation, he gave us his card and showed us his rooms just encase we wanted to stay there. This has been the only time a tout has been useful. The rooms were Y60 a night for a double room. well it was either twin with two extra large singles or two small doubles, with a bathroom, A/C not included but ceiling fan. It is defiantly worth the money, the only minus was the switches for the room kept giving harsh electric shocks to brad, they had some poke. (jimmy)
little did we know we were going to have a great evening ahead of us. We walked around looking for food, and there only seemed to be one busy small area with table and chairs that everyone was eating at. We floated around for ages trying to get someones attention, obviously we stood a while as the chinese love to ignore you. We started to feel more and more awkward, which takes alot in china, our awkwardness-o-meter has gone up 500%. Except for the young crowd of Chinese boys and girls who soon started to gather around us, trying to help us order some food. It wasnt long until we were sat at there table with 12 pairs of Chinese youngsters staring at us. We didnt mind as they were seem so excited to have us join them.
We spent the whole evening chatting to them, trying to help each other with our Chinese and English. Even though the divide between our language and culture was very much apparent we still felt integrated and excepted into the party, which is something you don't often feel in the UK.
Even though they were young there hosting skills were outstanding, they wouldn't let us by a drink and if we tried to sneak of they would chase after. they wouldn't let us contribute to the meal, they always let us try the food first, constantly topping up our drinks and making us feel hapy and comfortable. Its nice to see people at such a young age, having manners and interest in other people from the other side of the world.
We both received a bracelets from two young girls who kept telling us we were beautiful, and a shell from another. After our delicious meal of mussels, beef, soup, cucumber, potatoes, some weird seafood dish and fish. They all got there cameras out and wanted various picture of us together, it was crazy to see how excited they were to be around us, it gave us such a warming feeling being around them. We then adventured to the see beach to play some childish games. It was so nice to make some new friends that are local, we have met so many great westies, but its great to get away from it all, we didnt see a single westie for 4 days.
We were going to meet them in the morning for a swim bu they had to leave earlier than expected to go back to school. Instead we walked down the beach for a few miles to see if there were any better areas to set up camp for the night. We found an area but soon decided that we would as we soon realised we didn't carry enough water for the next 24 hours and there were not shops to get some from. Never under estimate how much water you will need, we couldn't carry any more and we had ran out way before we even made it back to a shop. we took 4 litres and it lasted 4 hours
There was no shelter on the beach to escape from the roaring sun so we built a sun shade from coconut leaves.The sea was like walking into a warm bath, it would of been nice a tad cooler.
We then made a fire to cook our noodles, by this time of today the water we carried was already boiling so i wondered if the heat form the bottled water would cook the noodles with out the fire. I place the noodles in our mess tin with some water. ! minutes later in the sun the noodles had soaked up all the water and was soft and ready to eat, we stuck them on the fire to heat up. It just goes to show how strong the sun can be.
We stated to headed back before dehydration kicked in, After checking back into the room left earlier that morning we soon returned to the beach for an evening swim. Being in the coconut plantation, coconut juice is sold every where from the shops, We bough a cold coconut on the way to the beach for Y3 and relaxed on hammocks listening to the waves, and watching the sun go down.
The coconut plantation is defiantly a place you have to stay when visiting Hainan the sea may not be clear blue but the area is just as beautiful, the people are friendly and the accommodation is cheap.
We left the following day to head to Shimei bay, as lonely planet stated it is ' stunning' and we wanted to stay here for a few days. We got a bus back to wangchang and then another bus to Shimei bay, there is no bus directly to the bay but if you let the drive know he will do a detour and drop you off a few just off the highway about 2km from the beach, not to far to walk.
Now the beach here is just what you image Hawaii to look like. There is a sign on the beach that your not aloud to swim because it is for sight seeing. You can walk a few minutes to find and area to go swimming. Brad was warned not to go swimming due to strong currents, after all this is the number one surfing beach in hainan, a 300m left ripping right across the bay, no board hire though, brad went in for a body surf and said the currents were strong but ok once you got behind the shore break. I would not recommend coming here unless you plan on spending alot of money on a room in a resort. I wouldn't recommend coming here for a day unless you are staying close by, but we couldn't find a cheap place to stay,
Deciding it was probably best to head back to our hostel in haikou, we walked to where we got dropped off in hope there would be a bus passing heading towards haikou. The touts waiting to offer lifts to people getting on the bus were very helpful and informed us one should be passing soon, they even flagged it down and told us how much it would cost.
We got on the bus and there were very few seats left, a load of people got off and we moved to the back to get comfy, no sooner had we done this that we had to chang to another bus 10 minutes later, after running across the exit ramp to the waiting bus, we chucked our bags in the back and boarded. we were instantly shocked to see how many people were on there. We squashed onto a wooden slat on top of the engine compartment. Thinking you couldn't get anymore people on the rammed 10 more people back on sitting and standing everywhere. We ended up sitting here for 3.5 hours. It was probably about time we experienced rough travel.
After getting back to our hostel, it was like being home. We loved staying in the' Banana Hostel' the rooms are huge with ensuite even in the dorms, they have loads of seating area and a huge collection of up to date DVDs where we spent the next couple of days relaxing, which we haven't done in a long time. We planned to go to the local beach one day but pick the wrong day. Even though it was cloudy the air was hot.
Hainan is a great place to visit, we had not met anyone that was going, or had been here, but we are very glad we made the trip, banana hostel was great, as said good rooms, and lots of common area, pool, ping pong, peter and his wife are very helpful and the place is always full of his mates which makes it nice and social, not that many travelers there, but always someone to chat with. defo highly recommended.
