Sanya City 三亚市

We had spectacular views of Sanya River from our hotel room. The hotel was recommended by a friend when he visited Sanya last year.

We went out for an early dinner as we had skipped lunch. The bellboy gave us clear directions to a good Hainanese restaurant behind the hotel. I ordered sweet and sour fish, Wenchang chicken and braised brinjal with salted fish. The portions were too much for 3 of us, but they were delicious.

There was a chef from Bangalore flipping pratas. We had a chat with him. He works for two months at this restaurant and goes home for 3 months before returning. The poor guy speaks a little English and cannot converse in Mandarin. It must be lonely for him here and he was glad for our company as he flipped pratas non-stop.

Before we left, he gave us a scallion prata. We offered to pay as we were afraid it would affect his job. He just smiled and waved us goodbye. We were thankful for piping hot prata in Sanya. :)

After a good dinner, we took a stroll back to the hotel, taking in the sights of downtown Sanya city. We passed the 7-star Beauty Crown Hotel which has a record number of 6,668 rooms. The 9 unusual buildings look like beautiful tree structures. I regretted not crossing the road for a closer look.

Found an interesting book dispensing vending machine (24小时自助图书馆). Residents of Sanya can borrow up to 3 books for 15 days with their library cards.

We saw a tiny ice cream shop and went in for a yummy coconut ice cream.

It was dark when we emerged from the ice cream shop. We saw the bright lights on Sanya River and decided to explore it. I think we walked more than two kilometres, taking more than 2 hours to cover both sides of the river between two bridges.

We met many local residents dancing or playing chess during our walk. The river is clean and there was no unpleasant smell. It was a breezy night, so we were not perspiring much.

It was a tiring day, having walked a few kilometres. We had an early night.

The next morning, we decided to have breakfast at the dimsum restaurant located on the second level of our hotel. There was such a wide variety of dimsum to choose from. There was a cart displaying cooked blood curds and innards of cow, lamb and pig, We chose vegetarian Hainanese snacks which were delicious.

After our breakfast, we booked a car through the bellboy. For 300RMB we could select 3 places of interest (exclude entrance fees) to visit and the driver will send us to our final destination at Nanshan Cultural Zone before 6pm.