Hainan Haikou Trip

Both my husband and I travelled to Hainan Island at the end of March for the Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day). It was our first visit to my late parent-in-laws' homeland, so we selected 3 cities to visit before going to our village for the ancestors worship.

from Singapore to our Haikou hotel

We took the early morning flight to Haikou. We met many Hainanese at both the airports, they were also visiting Hainan Island. The Wenchang Cultural Fair 2015 would be held on 2nd April, we should be seeing many of them there.

We arrived in Haikou around midday, temperature was 23 degree Celsius - love the cool weather. We had to  bargain with the driver. The airport taxis do not use meters. The trip from the airport to our hotel was initially RMB100 but the driver reduced it to RMB90 after he picked up another woman passenger on the way. It would be scary if he picked up strange men to ride with us. *shudders*

Mingzhu Plaza ..... bikes for hire 

Our hotel was recommended by my husband's friend who had stayed here last year when he came to Haikou. It was located in Meilan district amidst shopping malls, eateries; and easy access to public transport. We were famished after checking in the hotel and quickly went to a nearby mall for lunch. The Hong Kong cafe was a bad choice as the food was 5 times more expensive than a local eatery and not tasty. Ish.

We spent some time (actually 2 days.... LOL) looking for a SIM card but discovered that we had to furnish our passport particulars and subscribed for a package. Before returning to our country, we must go back to cancel our subscription or else we would incur debts. It was such a hassle, we gave up getting a SIM card in the end.

gifts for subscription packages

We spent some time exploring the area surrounding our hotel. We took a walk in a park, found a huge supermarket that sells a wide variety of products(WOW!!), checked out an IT mall and finally ended up in a large book store for two hours.

This is the airport bus from Meilan Airport to Haixiu Road, Haikou city. It costs RMB20 per trip. Found this money-saving opportunity and sent the pictures to my brother-in-law who would be arriving the following day. Ha.

It was evening time when we finally lugged the books I purchased back to our hotel. We showered and changed before heading out for dinner.

Not far from our hotel, we discovered a local market and street food.