Baihuashan waterfall, Qiongzhong, Hainan island, China

A week spent on Hainan Island is for most a week spent lying on the beach under coconut palms. And while we spent a few days doing that, my friend Julia and I managed to fit in a bit of exploring the middle of the island in-between. We went to Qiongzhong without high hopes regarding the town, as it is described in the guide book as small and rather ugly. However, we were pleasantly surprised as it was quite nice, with colourful street stalls selling many kinds of tropical fruit, and a bustle along its streets at all hours of the night and day.

After a good night's sleep, we got up at a reasonable hour and stashed our rucksacks at the bus station before heading out to see some of the surrounding countryside. One man wanted to charge us 40 yuan to take his motorbike taxi up to the nearby waterfall, and said that everyone charged the same, but we nonetheless found someone to take us there for 20. It was mostly uphill, and the pathetic engine of the vehicle had a lot of trouble taking us there, but eventually we arrived at a little bridge where we got out of our little shelter and started walking.

Hainan Island is known as "China's Hawaii" as the two islands are on the same latitude. It's therefore very very hot. We walked up many steps, under some trees, for about 15 minutes before coming to the bottom of the waterfall that we were looking for. It was pleasant enough but not very exciting. After a few minutes we continued up the path and soon arrived at the top of the waterfall, where we rested for a while and watched dragonflies. Two Chinese men were hanging around, obviously not there for the view, but rather to kidnap some animals. They had an awful-looking small chicken that was plucked and tied up, and still breathing but only just. With it were two tiny chicks. They threw them down as they searched around for something else, and it was rather sad.

After our rest, we started on the walk back. On the way down the steps some Chinese tourists were walking up, and Julia and I discussed for a while how impossible it seems that Chinese people never seem to break into a sweat, even climbing a hill in 35 degree heat. This is very true and seems very strange.

The walk back to town was 7km, and we strolled leisurely, along a gently undulating road with crickets chirping all around us, and the occasional motorbike cruising past with delighted cries of "Hello!" as the riders saw that we were foreign. The road was lined with trees for most of the walk so we didn't have any views, but it was very pleasant nonetheless. There were markers every kilometre and although on the drive up it had seemed like an impossible task, we soon found ourselves back in the outskirts of the town.

Julia had just been saying how nice it would be to have a river to cool off in, when we spotted a public swimming pool by the road. It was funny, like it had been put there on purpose, just for us as it was exactly what we felt like after a long walk in the heat. It was only 6 yuan each we were told, and we decided to come back after we had drunk something and fetched our swimming things from our bags. However, we were so hungry that we had to have lunch when we got back into Qiongzhong, and after sitting under a fan for an hour we were suitably cooled off, and really quite tired, so we decided to give the swim a miss. It had been a lovely walk and all in all a very nice morning.

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