October 25th
Just before eight in the morning everyone gathered at the Wanning cycling association, we made sure our bikes were ready, then before we set off we stopped by a local restaurant for breakfast. The meal consisted of Hele zongzi which is a glutinous rice dish wrapped in banana leaves, inside is usually some pork, some vegetables and crab roe there was also soup called Houan rice noodle soup which has some leeks, pork and of course rice noodles.
After breakfast we biked about 20km to Wentong Village. This village has both Li and Miao minority group characteristics. It was a very quiet and peaceful village, the road is quite narrow so there are very few cars, which allowed us to bike around and enjoy the beautiful scenery.
Lunch time! In Wanning there is an amazing Indonesian restaurant, we were able to enjoy a lot of delicious food like curry, deep fried eggplant, beef satay, fish and several dished whose names I can’t remember.
After lunch we needed some coffee, so we went to Longyuan coffee, where they are a certified organic Xinglong coffee plantation. We learned how to make QQ cake. This cake is a sticky almost like mochi style dessert covered in shaved coconut and very pink, it’s that color because we used the fruit and juice from a cactus! After making this we got to learn about making the perfect cup of coffee, then we got to drink the coffee, and it was good. After they show us how to make it and gave us a taste we had a competition to see which team could make the perfect cup, after that they even taught us how to use the espresso machine and make a café mochas, one girl even decorated the top of the foam by drawing a bicycle using chocolate syrup. The coffee plantation had some very old fashioned stone grinders, where we could practice grinding coffee, it was a lot of fun.
After getting wired on coffee we rode about 7km to the Xinglong Greenway, this road’s main focus is nature and beauty. As we were biking we can see a small river, lots of trees, various local plants, and gorgeous flowers. Not to mention enjoying all the fresh air, blue skies and big white fluffy clouds.
Next we rode a few kilometers to arrive at the hotel. This hotel is part of the 21 century hotel chain, but is has a very unique feature, a museum! To begin with the hotel was absolutely beautiful, with white marble everywhere, and some water features inside, but the best part was the museum. They had stone statues, jadeite statues, ancient mirrors, paintings, vases, coins and so much more, I had a hard time leaving the museum because I wanted to just keep exploring different rooms and looking and learning about the beautiful ancient Chinese culture.
After being dragged away from the museum we went to a Xinglong restaurant just a few minutes from the hotel, this restaurant had strips of tender beef that we could grill on a barbecue, (the restaurant even had what seemed like two foot long chopsticks that we could use to get the meat off of the barbecue), a coconut chicken soup with large strips of coconut meat and fresh coconut juice to give it a unique Hainan flavor, along with other local Hainan dishes and vegetables.
After nearly eating to the point of bursting, we went back to the hotel to shower and go to bed because the next day we had a very early start.
October 26th
We had a great night’s sleep in a beautiful hotel room with a soft and comfortable bed, even though we had to wake up at 5 a.m. we were ready to get the second day started with a sunrise bike ride. We rode for almost an hour enjoying the peaceful, cool morning air. We rode past many fields, and rice paddies, and we could often catch a glimpse of the sea. We rode to the iconic Wanning Sun Bridge, this bridge has a very unique design and from the bridge we can see the beautiful ocean.
Once we were finished enjoying the ocean view we rode to a small town called Dong’ao where we had breakfast. There were fried noodles, noodle soup, hard boiled eggs and a huge assortment of local Wanning breakfast sweet and sticky snacks.
Once we were done with breakfast we jumped on our bikes and rode to a village called Nandao, this village wasn’t too far away maybe only about 10-15 kilometers. This village had some older houses, some were even more than 100 years old and people were still living in them. In this village everyone welcomed us, the grandmothers and grandfathers’ faces were lined with years of hard work but they had some really big smiles and were excited to have their pictures taken with us. We also ran into a carpenter who was making tables, he’s been doing this for over 50 years and let us watch him work.
Then it was lunch time, we rode maybe 20 minutes or so and went to a seafood restaurant on the beach in a village called Wuchang. We enjoyed shrimp, crab, fish and even some scallops. We ate so much yet again!
We let our full bellies rest a little bit before riding another half an hour or so to drink some more local coffee and practice some Chinese calligraphy, then off to the mountain.
Dongshan mountain. This mountain is fascinating, before we rode up it, which was pretty steep in places, we stopped at the base and bought some fresh coconuts where a friendly woman cut a small hole near the top and gave us a straw so we could drink the refreshing coconut water. The coconut water gave us enough energy to make it up to the top with no problem then we were able to watch and even participate in a tradition Buddhist ceremony. The temple was fairly ornate with lots of gold colored statues, chanting monks and incense. The ceremony was so fascinating to watch, and gave us a chance to learn a little more about the Buddhism. The ceremony even included the monks blessing all the bicycles.
A few kilometers away from the mountain was where we had our final dinner together. We got to try one of the four famous Hainan specialty dishes, Dongshan mutton. This dish is similar to a soup or stew with tender pieces of mutton put in and lots of root vegetables in a broth. We also enjoyed an appitizer called Dongshan Laobing, which was similar to a homemade pan fried bread.
This tour was a lot of fun, we were able to visit many different places and have quite a few unique experience. I just want to say thanks again to the Wanning cycling association and Wanning Photographers Association for putting together a great trip! I’m already looking forward to the next trip.
