Just got back from Sanya, China today and it was...good...? Yeah, it was good. I'm glad we got to go but there were some serious downsides. It was the most uncomfortable place on earth. The coolest (overnight) it got there was 29C/84F. Fucken yuck. Humidity got up to 94% and no lower than 76%. Fucken yucker. Sun was almost as harsh as here. That sounds doable but I don't walk around all day in shorts, tee and thongs here - if I'm in the sun I can cover up because the humidity isn't a ridiculous 94%.
We were there for family stuff and the family stuff went well - that specific family stuff anyway. You can't keep everyone happy but most of the important stuff went great.
The food was pretty much amazing. There were some duds, obviously, but my clearest memories of the place were the great food. And the weird food - sandworms, quartered frogs, pig stomach, fish stomach, turtle soup. You'd just rock up to some street vendor and pick your ingredients (mostly dead, thankfuck) and your food would be there in minutes. Cheap as **** all too. I mean proper cheap. We'd regularly get bills for 6 people that were less than $30.
The place was pretty dirty though. People would have their little kids **** in the street/mall floors. There was this red stuff all over the ground everywhere, and I do mean everywhere that was from some fruit that people use like chewing tobacco or something? Anyway, the entire place looked like a paintball field with the **** gobbed on the ground. I did manage to avoid squat toilets for the whole time however so I will never know exactly how dirty the place can be.
I am the most amusing person on the planet. Everywhere I would go people would just stare at me. Or laugh and point (you'd think I'd be used to that by now). But to be fair, I must say that even at an only slightly taller than average 183cm/6ft I felt like an absolute giant there. I felt no concern when members of my group got away from me in crowds in unfamiliar places because I could never see heads less than 100m away. I needed to buy a shirt for a wedding banquet there and had to go up to size XL and even then I had to adjust the shoulders of the shirt to be able to reach forwards properly. And even though the people I work with make me feel quite slight of build I do look almost barrel-chested by comparison in many of the group/crowd photos I have seen. So yeah, I guess my point is I knew I'd look out of place and people would notice but I assumed I would be received as a novelty of sorts but some people were genuinely "WTF?" which was weird.
Oh god, the traffic was a nightmare. I have no idea how to do the horrors of crossing the street on foot justice. Have you ever played Frogger? Play it with only one dude.
Most of that looks kinda negative but I did (on average) have a good time but I dunno if I'd recommend anyone go there without a good reason.
Oh yeah. You wanna know the weirdest thing? Despite the ridiculous humidity and heat it is almost impossible to buy a cold drink. And ice is almost unheard of. But you can get hot tea (for free) almost everywhere.
