The R & R That Wasn’t, Part 1 - Sanya

It’s been a long time so I guess I should get back down to writing a little. Living half way round the world can have its disadvantages at times, you miss friends and more especially, family members. Luckily for us, my son is a lot more financially ‘savvy’ than I am and is able to afford more travel. He and his wife decided to pay us a visit in April. Visas were a little confusing so in the end they decided to be on the safe side and got them from the Chinese Embassy in London. I can’t remember how much they were but my son thought they were a bit on the expensive side. They flew from London Heathrow, to Hong Kong and then onwards to Sanya the same day. I decided that they wouldn’t particularly fancy a drive to Wuzhishan after all that and booked us all into the Pearl River Hotel in Sanya. As you can see, Huan was already exhausted by the time we got there!

The Pearl River Hotel is in Dadonghai and is a great place to spend a day or two. We always stay there if we have to overnight in Sanya. It’s not so cheap, although it is cheaper than the published prices! We paid RMB 600 for each room, including a double bed and breakfast. Breakfast is pretty good. You may find it a little crowded depending what time of the year you go. At the beginning of April we paid more than usual and the hotel was far busier.

Our visitors had arrived too late on the first evening so ‘dinner’ was not needed. The next day, our first full day was spent lounging around by the pool and on the beach. All had a lazy time and in my case, took on a lobster hue. I’ll never learn.

We had told them all about the wonderful outdoor fish buffet just by the swimming pool so that was our plan for the evening. Disappointingly, this had closed down so we had a walk around and found a restaurant, whose name I forget, and treated them to a genuine Chinese meal. What’s not obvious on the table is the Baiju. Well, we had to give them a try, didn’t we?

We did have a trip out on the second full day, more on that in the next blog entry. The third day, (second night) was spent once more lounging around the pool and beach.

My son and his wife booked massages in the hotel and thoroughly enjoyed them despite the communication breakdown. They had each booked a different type of massage but ended up in each other’s places!

In the evening, we had a walk around the local area, once again looking for somewhere to eat. We stumbled across the ‘Dolphin Bar & Grill’. It is so close to the Pearl River Hotel and the Summer Shopping Mall, I have no idea how we never found it before! The food there was absolutely brilliant as was the service. Nothing took a long time to arrive, either food or drink wise, nothing could be faulted in any way whatsoever. Our waitress, Ivy, was extremely attentive, spoke excellent English, needed nothing repeated and got nothing wrong. You can’t ask more than that!

Here are our choices, sans alcohol. We all had some, apart from Huan, we just have no pictures of it as we had them after the meal. I don’t remember the exact name of mine, but checking on google, it would appear to have been an ‘Espresso Martini’. Very ‘morish’ I can well recommend it!

The next morning we packed up our bags and headed home for a much needed rest. Our plan was to stop at Romance Park on the way but I guess we were a little too early. Nothing seemed to be ready for tourists at that time. We had a photo call instead.