“We’ve got space in the villa, come with us!”

My friend inviting me on a trip to Sanya, oblivious to the future misfortune that said villa would be.

So I was living in Shanghai at this stage, and besides a day in Shenzhen, I hadn’t been at the beach in quite some time. My last proper beach days were in The Philippines in February 2020, and I was missing the allure of South East Asian coastal life. Shanghai has some public pools open in the summer, but they’re crammed and have unrealistically expensive entry fees.

If you live in China, you hear a lot about Sanya from both expats and locals. Typically I found that the expats that don’t spend a lot of time getting to know the culture hadn’t travelled to many places BESIDES Sanya. To me it sounded overrated and didn’t hold much appeal, but I rarely said no to a travel opportunity. So, when my friend invited me to join her and her pals in Sanya, I of course said yes.

It was June, my expectations weren’t too high but I was getting giddy thinking about being in the ocean, and I was landing in Sanya, Hainan. As we stepped out of the plane a wave of humidity crashed over us. As we arrived in the evening, the state of the ocean remained a mystery to me. The first night was, of course, spent at the infamous Dolphin Bar. This was a walking distance from the cheap hostel we booked for the night. There’s a running joke among expats in China that Dolphin is THE spot. Not surprisingly, we ran into familiar faces at the door.

In all fairness, it’s a great vibe. With the football on the projectors and cold beers flowing, we christened the first night of the holiday. I woke the next day and put the headache on mute, keen to get to the ocean ASAP.

At this stage, there was only four of the 13 of us there. We got a taxi to the supposed villa we had booked and, well… here’s a breakdown of how the next five hours went:

• 1:30pm – arrived at booked villa and were told to wait for the keyholder
• 1:45pm – told to go with said keyholder to another villa as the booked one was flooded
• 2:30pm – arrived at a new villa that was much more expensive but a stunning alternative
• 2:45pm – police arrived and informed everyone that foreigners cannot be registered there
• 3:40pm – told there’s another villa for us to see where foreigners CAN be registered
• 4:30pm – arrived at new villa that had enough space for ten people (note: we had 14) and an outdoor pool the size of a fish pond
• 5:00pm – continued to argue that this was not what we payed money for and there was no way we could all fit
• 5:15pm – defeated, accepted the villa and headed to the beach

Thankfully, after all that, pictured above was the first
Sanya sunset we experienced & it wasn’t too shabby at all.

The villa dilemma would have made for a hilarious episode of Pranked. Some of us were in one taxi with the keyholder, others were following behind arriving to each surprise situation a few minutes post shocking discovery, and the last batch gave up entirely and went to the beach already. Though it was less than ideal and certainly not the fancy holiday we had in mind, the group was all together finally, we had dipped into the warm sea and the fairyfloss sunset had won our hearts over.

The next morning, the sun was beaming, the temperature was hot and I did not feel like I was in China anymore. A few of the group had pulled the short straw and slept on makeshift cushion floor beds, others on couches. I had only met some of the group members the night before, but these close quarters forced us to become close very quickly. Let’s just say it’s a funny story to tell now.

Shamefully, we returned to none other than Dolphin Bar for a meal. Look, the place IS good. I’m now one of the expats honking Sanya’s horn and mentioning the must-visit bar. We may have failed at being good travellers, but it was delicious. Not far off was the beach we could walk to. I could see piercing blue water from the main road as we approached and thought there was no way the beaches could be this nice here! In fact, they were.

The water was choppy, waves as high as I would often see at home, but I ran in and swam straight out. Perfection! No way was Sanya overrated.

The day was spent roasting on the white sand and wrestling the waves in the turquoise waters, on repeat. I often found myself on trips with a back-to-back schedule, feeling bad when I wasn’t on the go exploring. This was a guiltfree time to unwind and I wasn’t mad at all. But the day’s fun wasn’t over yet! We booked a yacht for sunset that evening. Beers packed, and not much of an idea of what to expect, we were on route to the dock.

With such a big group, booking a yacht for a few hours turned out not to be as expensive of a luxury as it sounds. We were far off the shoreline soon enough, the city silhouette on the horizon. To my delight, I could jump into the water! But… only if I wore a life vest. As hilarious as this was to me, a swimmer since I was a baby, I shrugged it off as another classic China thing, and dived on in.

Come sunset, we were stoked with our boat decision. The sky was burning for us that evening. We had such saturated sunset hues that it was almost unbelievably perfect. This made up for the small handful of us that had done the rounds over the toilet below deck. Turns out, combining days of beer drinking and a choppy sea doesn’t make for a pleasant journey. I highly recommend this activity if you’re in Sanya with a big group, but try to choose a day when the water’s calm.

Typically in China, if you head away from the main tourist trap you’ll often find yourself alone. We headed to the farthest part of the beach at Houhai and, surprise surprise, found an empty spot to set up in. Jumping on the boards, myself and our only friend that could surf taught the others whatever skills we could relay. Most of us were stood on the boards in no time!

I felt like a child again. You couldn’t get me out of the water for hours, even when I was at that heavy breathing, using all my core to stay afloat stage. Later, we found some thin scraps of plywood dumped under a tree and tobogganed down the small sand dunes. The day was perfect!

There was a large cluster of rocks far out off the shoreline, so a few of us decided to swim out to it. As it goes, it was much further than we had expected. After what seemed like 30 minutes of swimming and paddling, the few of us that braved the distance arrived at the rocks. These rocks were covered in shells and weren’t an option for our bare feet. Back we went. At least we got some decent exercise in.

The day at Houhai ended with another picture perfect sunset. We were in a dusk-lover’s (me) heaven! Knowing this would be my last time in the ocean for a while, I lapped it up as much as possible. By the early evening, the water was dead still and I was able to float in the shallows staring up at the moon for what seemed like an hour. The muffled sounds of the world almost inaudible underwater set the perfect soundtrack to my dreamy state.

When you step off the beach at Houhai you can get lost amongst sandy laneways. I truly felt like I was back in Indonesia or The Philippines. Surfboard-decorated cafes, outdoor beer gardens and barefoot travellers everywhere. Exhausted from the day, we had a hearty meal and set off for our final night in our mini villa.

We had a final hoorah, old and new friends stoked to be enjoying their time off, fuelled by that expat connection that never fails to bring a fresh sense of joy and excitement. I left Sanya with a bold tick of approval, and a killer hangover.

Nothing makes me happier than being sea-side, floating under dusk skies and feeling warm sand between my toes. Sitting on the beach in Houhai Bay, I almost convinced myself to leave the city life and move there. That may have been my ocean love-goggles talking, though.

– Tash