Rising out of the South China Sea between Guangdong and Vietnam,
Hainan Island marks the southernmost undisputed limit of
Chinese authority, a three-hundred-kilometre-broad spread of
beaches, mountain scenery, history, myth and - most of all - the
effects of exploitation. Today a province in its own right, Hainan
was historically the "Tail of the Dragon", an enigmatic full stop
to the Han empire inhabited by unspeakably backward races, only
surfacing into popular consciousness when it could be of use. Han
settlements were established around the coast in 200 AD, but for
millennia Hainan was only seen fit to be a place of exile. Later,
even Western powers largely ignored the island, though noting its
strategic position between China and their concerns in the rest of
Southeast Asia. So complete was Hainan's isolation that, as
recently as the 1930s, ethnic Li , who first settled here
more than two thousand years ago, still lived a hunter-gatherer
existence in the interior highlands.
Modern Hainan is no primitive paradise, however. After two years
of naval bombardments, the Japanese occupied the island in 1939,
and by the end of the war had executed a full third of Hainan's
male population in retaliation for raids on their forces by Chinese
guerrillas. It was closed to general access throughout the
Vietnam War - when the US briefly considered invading after
a B-52 was shot down during the "Rolling Thunder" operation - and
in the 1980s by China's own conflict with Vietnam. Hainan's current
status as a Special Economic Zone seems simply to have been a
licence for a succession of governments to strip its natural
resources and abandon the inhabitants to fend for themselves. It
would be harder to imagine a worse example of economic
mismanagement : there might be skyscrapers and modern factories
around the cities, but you'll also see country people so poor that
they live in lean-tos made of mud and straw, which have to be
rebuilt after each wet season. Some of these are locals, others are
recent migrants, either resettled by the government or drawn by the
official promotion of Hainan as an easy place to get rich. With no
experience of garnering a living in a tropical climate, they
blindly experiment with different crops - rubber, mango, coconuts
and coffee, in the hope that a market will emerge. Forestry used to
be a mainstay but now there is no forest left, with the exception
of ragged remnants clinging to the very tips of Hainan's mountains.
Tourism seems to be the sole reliable source of income, and
everyone is desperate to be involved. Persistent marketing has made
Hainan the place that all Chinese want to come for a holiday, but
investment has been wildly over-optimistic, with numerous hotels
and entertainment complexes around the place standing empty,
unfinished or never used.
Yet despite all this, Hainan as a whole remains one of China's
most unexplored corners. For foreign and domestic tourists alike,
the most obvious reason to come here is to flop down on the warm,
sandy beaches near the southern city of Sanya , and,
as a rest cure after months on the mainland, it's a very good one.
Initially there doesn't seem much more to get excited about.
Haikou , Hainan's capital, bears evidence of brief colonial
occupation, but its primary importance is as a transit point
between the island and mainland, while Han towns along the east
coast have only slightly more character and scenic appeal.
Spend a little time and effort elsewhere, however, and things start
to get more interesting: the highlands around the town of
Tongshi are the place to start looking for Li culture
, and the mountainous southwest hides some forgotten nature
reserves , where what's left of Hainan's indigenous flora and
fauna hangs by a thread. There are even a handful of underwater
sites off the southern coast, the only place in provincial China
where those with the necessary qualifications can go scuba
diving .
Getting to Hainan is straightforward, with daily flights
from all over the country to Haikou and Sanya, and regular ferries
from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Beihai. Once here,
getting around is easy: there are highways and roads all
over Hainan, covered by a prolific quantity of local
transport , the legacy of an illicit manoeuvre by the local
government during the mid-1980s which saw a quarter of a million
vehicles of all shapes and sizes imported on to the island.
High-speed buses link Haikou and Sanya in just three hours, while
you can easily hop around the rest of the island by bus and
minibus. Sanya is also one of only three cities in China where you
can rent a car and drive around on your own, though this is
not a cheap option. Indeed, its financial plight, and the fact that
everyone on the island is hungry to make money, means that Hainan
is noticeably more expensive than the adjacent mainland -
even Chinese tourists grumble about being constantly
overcharged.
Hainan's extremely hot and humid wet season lasts from
June to October. It's better to visit between December and April,
when the climate is generally dry and tropically moderate, sunny
days peaking around 25°C on the southern coast. Note that many
towns here have different local and Chinese names. As the latter
occur more frequently on maps and bus timetables, Chinese names are
used below in the main text and character boxes, with local names
indicated in brackets.