Hainan and Couch-surfing

Last month I decided I needed the beach. I began planning a long weekend in Hainan, which of course must include couch-surfing. Thanks to this wonderful network of people I can stay for FREE almost anywhere in the world, and possibly make a friend and get my meals cooked for me.

I set off for Haikou by plane and landed late that night. I took a bus into the center of the city and my host, Robert, a recent UC-Irvine grad starting up a wine import business, picked me up on his motorcycle. This was my second time traveling alone (the first was this winter in Yunnan: my parents raised me that girls never travel alone- they technically still don’t know), but my first time being hosted by a guy. Turned out, as I expected, to be totally safe and lots of fun. He cooked for me and had time to show me around the city on his bike. We went to see the old inactive volcano there and went to the beach. I was continuing on to Sanya, the big tourist spot, so he decided to come with. We both surfed at this lady’s house who was an amazing cook and fed us in exchange for my baking savy! The beach at night was nice. I got the biggest, juiciest mangoes there the likes of which I haven’t seen since my grandma got a box from family in Jamaica! Also, blueberry filling to bake a pie.

Robert had told me about how he hitchhiked from Beijing this past summer all the way to Hainan. We both wanted an adventure so we decided to hitchhike back to the mainland. I learned all sorts of Chinese lingo for hitchhiking like “da biao che” and “qing wen ni wang haikou fangxiang ma?” People are pretty open and friendly. I wouldn’t do that part alone, but it’s definitely worth trying. To save money on a hotel or hostel we paid for a massage and asked if we could stay overnight. Nice, humongous washrooms all to ourselves! We made it as far as Guangzhou before I had to rush back to Changsha in time for work and he to Macau to renew his visa.

Editor’s Note/Disclaimer: Please be aware that Yale-China does NOT condone hitchhiking. It is illegal in both mainland China and Hong Kong. If couch-surfing, be sure to use common sense to evaluate the safety of each individual situation, and make sure you are in compliance with laws regarding local registration of foreigners.