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Hainan has lots of snow-white sandy beaches and its natural bays are great playgrounds for water activities
Hawaii Of The Orient
China’s emperors of old deemed Hainan so dismal that it was used as a prison isle. Times have changed and Hainan is now the haunt of supermodels, sun lovers and the new jet set. Graham Bond checks things out.
of Hainan these days use a rather different epithet to describe their home: “Hawaii of the Orient”.
Island Paradise
Hainan may be on the same latitude as Hawaii, but it wasn’t until this century that it began to live up to the notion that it could compete as a tropical tourist paradise. Fifteen years ago, the city of Sanya, on the southern tip of the island – about 483km from Hong Kong – was an agricultural backwater, with only a handful of hotels offering an escape to Beijing’s elite and Hong Kong businessmen. Since Miss World landed, the crowd is increasingly cosmopolitan, with tour operators as far away as the UK offering Hainan as a glamour/sunshine option on tours of the Middle Kingdom.
In terms of beaches, Hainan competes admirably with the real Hawaii. Yalong Bay, just east
Beijing has history; Shanghai has haute cuisine. Xian is cultural; Hong Kong is cool. But if China were to become a real tourist favourite, where, oh where were the beaches?
It took 111 buxom beauties to reveal the answer. In 2003, Miss World came to the small island province of Hainan. And she hasn’t left since. After the babes came the brutes in the form of the World’s Strongest Man contest. A series of major international golfing tournaments and top-notch hotel chains have since added more gloss to the ever-thickening veneer.
It’s a turnaround for an island that was, in dynastic times, dubbed the “Gates of Hell”. As China’s most southerly outpost, it was considered a dismal place, fit only to be used as a place of exile for courtiers who had incurred imperial wrath.
One of those unfortunates, poet Su Dongpo, was obviously a man of modern sensibilities. Inspired by the island’s craggy coastline, white beaches, blue skies, lush forests and incredible biodiversity, he wrote a series of odes to Hainan’s natural wonders that changed the way Beijing viewed its distant territory. Accordingly, the folks in charge
ENDLESS VACATION 15
Photos: Hainan Provincial Tourism Administration of China