(J) So this island "paradise" was mainly about hashing again. But in truth the interhash was probably not as well organised as the prelube ( many many more people of course). The food was average at best, the accommodation was ok, the runs less than spectacular...and by Sunday after 6 runs in 8 days I for one had pretty well had it, including head cold and sore throat from the cold and smog.
Just some observations; the traffic in China seems to be completely chaotic, but after a while you gain a sense of what is going on. Where as in Oz most people tend to race, here everyone is just trying to keep moving. Right turners merge in with the through traffic getting out of the way, lanes are not observed at all, the paint something of a waste. As are the pedestrian crossings which are universally ignored. The traffic hierarchy in Haikou goes trucks, buses, cars, motorised bikes, push bikes and pedestrians. The footpaths are used by everyone but mainly the motorised and push bikes. Pedestrians are playing chicken pretty much full time! Horns & bells the order of the day. There is of course a lot of traffic of every type but everyone stays calm and pushes on.
There is little evidence that the economy here works any different to anywhere else, at least on surface. Everyone seems really keen to make a buck....markets, restaurants, shopping malls all doing their best to attract the buyer. Whilst a lot of the fancy shops seem to be fairly empty, I think there is potential for that to change in time. I guess a lot of the real changes that occurred here in the past relate to farmers and industry workers.
Sunday is the universal day of rest it seems with the local park brim full of families having a day out. Singing is prevalent everywhere, there is a lot of exercise equipment and bikes of different configurations for hire. Even a ballroom dancing area! Chez also spied an enormous rat doing a floor sweep in one of the bike hire spots. He was quite unperturbed by our interest (not too close!).
Our next stop is the capital, no more hashing, the real tourist stuff begins.
(C) Hainan does seem like an island paradise when you walk out of the airport. Well, when you see the palm tree lined streets and even the design of the airport building it does feel kind of tropical. In other parts of China the locals will even tell you that it's the place Chinese people like to go for holidays. I guess not too many Chinese have been to a tropical island then.
Our transfer from the airport to our hotel was a bit of an adventure in itself. Shuttle buses were being offered free of charge to us hashers from the airport to our hotel or main venue to register for the interhash. Once on the bus we were soon to find out that the bus would take us to register at the main venue first then we would get on a different bus to our hotel. By this stage Patsy and Maradonna were also on the same shuttle buses after flying from Hong Kong. It all seemed reasonable and practical. So after registering, collecting our goodie bags and free beer plus a couple more we asked one of the volunteers where the bus was. He quickly advised us that the buses weren't running yet so we would have to get a taxi from the other side of the very busy road out front. Not an easy thing to do with all our luggage while dodging bikes, cars and buses but we made it. Twenty minutes later, after 4 taxis stopped but then refused to take us and numerous other empty ones drove right passed we trudged back to the venue and managed to get a lift with another volunteer, Mother Duck, who was from the US and had been living there for 8 years. Mother Duck gave us some good tactics for next time we were after a taxi in China. As soon as the taxi pulls up the lady jumps in then you let the taxi driver know where you want to go. If he doesn't want to take you there, the lady refuses to get out which gives him no choice but to take you where you want to go.
Our mission in Haikou, apart from participate in the 2014 Interhash was to buy a new camera to replace our damaged one and to set up a VPN so that we could share some travel pictures and travel blog with our family on Facebook. Facebook and other social media are banned in China. We didn't even consider that possibility before we left home. Both were achieved thanks to Kathy aka Wizz Bizz who already had a VPN and a lovely Chinese girl in the Samsung mobile shop who escorted us halfway across town to the BIG Samsung shop that sold cameras.
The first run/walk we did in Haikou was the Hammersley offshore run. Hammersley are a men only club in Perth. They traditionally always set a run prior to every Interhash in the host city. During the circle after the run a lot of dirty ditties were sung, beer was down downed and bare bums were sat on the ice lounge for various charges.
The interhash was a bit disappointing compared to others we had been to in Perth and Kuching Borneo but the massages were good. 60RMB (approx $13) for 45 mins at the main venue for the hash. They had about 10 female masseuses working constantly during the hash. Very strong massage from such small ladies. I managed a full body massage and feet/leg massage on 2 separate occasions in the few days we were there. Certainly helped with the aches from travelling and our 6 hash run/walks in 8 days.
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