Day 6 - Morning of Sunday 21st November 2010

The start of a brand new week in wonderful China. I left the curtains of my luxurious Sheraton Sanya Resort  room open during the night so that I could enjoy the glorious tropical view out the window when the wake up call came at 6.30am .I ventured down to the Lotus Cafe Restaurant on the first floor at 7am for a delicious buffet breakfast of Chinese and Western delectable dishes.

We departed the Resort at 8.45am, again with a police escort for our mini-bus convoy. There was always something of interest to view out the window as we travelled. In many ways the new high rise towering buildings in Sanya reminded me of the Gold Coast. Only these looked cleaner and more modern with better landscaping of palm trees, flowerbeds and grassed areas. It was always a hive of activity on the many building sites, road works, and foot path constructions, with labourers outnumbering heavy machinery. As we travelled out of Sanya the countryside contained a mixture of market gardens being tended by many workers, forested areas, simple housing, roadside stalls, market style shops and tea rooms.  

The scarcity of vending machines in China surprised me until I realised the Chinese version of a vending machine was a person sitting under a beach umbrella at a roadside stall selling bottled water, soft drinks or confectionary. I noticed that many of the simplest houses had rather grand entrance doorways, hot water storage units on the roofs that looked like a stainless steel beer kegs, and most had a satellite dish on the roof.

It was common to see groups of men sitting around tables in front of houses and shops The explanation given was that its is customary for the men to sit down, socialise and drink green tea while the women worked. I wonder if this concept could catch on in Australia….

We made our first stop at 9.20am at the Sanya Duty Free Store. This is the only large-scale tax-free shopping centre on Hainan Island. We were the first guests after the opening of the third phase of Sanya DFS, the Sanya Fashion Galleria housing many new outlets from international firms. Unfortunately, we could not make any purchases, as we were not flying out of the Sanya airport.

We were back on the bus at 9.40am and travelled along the Coconut Palm Corridor to the 50 sq kilometre “Nanshan Cultural Tourist Zone”, arriving at 10.53am. This wonderful attraction showcases traditional Chinese, Hainanese and Buddhist culture. It comprises the large and richly decorated Nanshan Temple, many statues of Budda, the Mercy Garden and Auspiciousness Garden, the Longevity Valley and Moon Bay, the thousand arms golden Guanyin, the world’s largest dragon ink-stone and the giant 108 metre 3 faced Budda Statue. This statue took six years to build and was unveiled in 2005. It is currently the largest Buddha statue in the world and the fourth tallest statue in the world. The statue has three aspects; one side faces inland and the other two face the South China Sea. Each side represents Peace, Wisdom and Mercy.

The area is so large that we were conveyed around the site by trackless trains. Whilst on the train I was interviewed by a Chinese television news crew about my impressions of Hainan Island. The reporter spoke only Chinese, so her questions were translated by an interpreter, and then my answers were translated into Chinese for the reporter. It would have been interesting to see how the interview turned out in the television news broadcast!

We only had limited time to explore the many buildings, shrines and gardens, and missed out on seeing the classical concert and kung fu performance that the A$23 admission fee includes.

At 12.40pm we went to the Nanshan Yuang-qi Vegetarian Restaurant to enjoy a Buddhist vegetarian banquet. The dishes not only tasted delicious but were also attractively presented like works of art. The meal concluded our brief visit to the “Nanshan Cultural Tourist Zone”.