An early start to the day, my final one in China. This wasn’t really by choice, six hours sleep is a luxury for this trip but meant I was awake at 4.30am.

Even that didn’t dismay me, I just relaxed and drifted. Until 5am, when I needed to call Guest Services to report an issue.

This was challenging. Calling them was easy, I just didn’t know what the issue was. I just knew that on the deck above me someone was having a very bad morning indeed. I decided to call Guest Services at the 18th consecutive flush of their toilet and they managed two more before I got through. With exquisite timing that was the last flush, but a maintenance team were dispatched to ‘check the area’ just in case.

By then I was soundly awake so showered, dressed, wandered up to the Lido for coffee, ended up doing half a kilometer just walking from one end of the ship to the other. On the right of the ship (‘starboard’ is jargon and to thus be discouraged) I could see the lights of Hainan, a sodding big island off the coast of China. It’s one of the key economic development zones that’s underpinned China’s economic growth, which is probably why it’s one of the rare parts of China for which a visa isn’t required.

Breakfast this morning was Huevas Rancheros, which sounded interesting so I gave it ago. Allegedly it involved refried beans, chorizo, fried egg, avocado, taco, tomato and something else. What I actually got was this:

The Chorizo was nice.

By the time I’d finished eating the window beside me had gone from dark to ‘Hmm, China.’ I chatted with a former university administrator at the next table as we drew into port. He’s on his fifteenth cruise and seems to be suffering China fatigue, but he’s been on board since Shanghai.

Coming back to my cabin I bumped into the ship’s Purser in the lift, so asked him how his cruise is going. He seemed surprised to be asked that, but admitted he’s enjoying it.

The cruise port has some interestingly designed buildings overlooking it. Can’t think what was on the architect’s mind.

The free shuttle bus dropped us in what can best be described as a bad version of Skegness. It’s gritty and raining, Chinese holiday makers wandering around in beachwear with tiny tots stumbling by the road in swimming costumes, looking lost and bewildered. The rain is miserable but not as bad as the internet connection. I’m sat in a five star hotel, waiting for their coffee shop to open, benefiting from their wifi. It can’t handle photograph uploads and the Chinese censorship is horrific. I can’t get to google.com, the BBC news website, dictionary.com (to check ‘conscientiously’) or indeed anywhere useful. Except Slashdot, which is clearly deemed harmless, and obviously my travelogue (which the censors clearly just haven’t found yet). At least email works.

It’s a shame, the Chinese people I’ve met have all been extremely friendly. I did from the bus see one massive propaganda poster so I’ll try and get a photograph of that later. Even the locals in the shops with no English greet you with a smile and (unlike Kowloon) there’s no hard sell.

I doubt I’ll see much of the town. I’ve already wandered around what the bus tour guide described as a shopping mall: it’s akin to a collection of shops in a large village. The real attraction here is the beach and I’m not a beach person even when it’s not raining. Plus I’ll be hitting Papua New Guinea and the Caribbean later in the holiday, I just don’t think an artificial Chinese beach is going to compete. Plus the rain’s getting harder.

So I’ll post this, browse Slashdot, buy a coffee in five minutes and then head back to the ship.

River in Sanya:

Boats:

The ship I’m on:

Insert witty caption:

The rain relented, I took a stroll. I didn’t have any Yen and nowhere took cards so I found the bus back to the ship instead of stopping for coffee. The bus went back a different route, through the town centre, a different view of Sanya (not Sanyo) that confirmed: This is 80s Skeggie. Tacky shops selling inflatables, bewildered tourists looking for the beach, bored locals lacking the energy to be aggrieved at the holidaymakers.

I didn’t get the photograph of the propaganda poster, we didn’t go past it again. Similarly I missed out on the photographs of the police marked milk floats with uniform clad men and women in them, the similarly uniformed man with a peaked cap riding a moped one-handed, the other holding a mobile phone he was staring into as he rode, the girl riding her moped side-saddle. Mopeds are very common and none of them ridden well, maybe one rider in 50 with a helmet, whole families sharing a single seat.

The Chinese babies were cute, the ones too young to walk and their barely older siblings, all dressed as though for church, smart party clothing that didn’t match their parents’ attire. Maybe children’s clothes are an ostensive sign of wealth, a healthier alternative to the outlawed binding of feet.

Back in the cruise terminal an obnoxious American woman on video conference with her family, the whole terminal getting to join the conversation. I wouldn’t have minded but she swamped the limited wifi network, everybody else failing to even connect, let alone actually access the internet. Miserably selfish bitch, she’d best avoid me for the rest of the trip.

Boarding the ship was straightforward, people more surprised that I was already back than anything. I’d been out, had a 4km walk, seen enough; why sit on a humid beach when I can get a better view from the ship, and free refreshments. There’s cribbage at 1.30pm, maybe it’s time I learned to play.

I’m the best cribbage player on the ship. I guess I must be, anyway, as nobody else turned up. Still, nice walk to a part of the ship I hadn’t seen for a couple of days. On the way back I took the scenic route, and finally found an open deck at the front of the ship. You can’t see the bow but you can at least see past it, so nice to know that’s there. In case you’re wondering it’s on deck 9, forward of the gym, through a hidden side door.

I returned via the Lido, distinctly hungry despite a nice breakfast. Perhaps because of it. I was good and passed up the opportunity, I don’t think I’m walking enough today to burn off three meals.

I’m also aware that the hunger may be a stress response rather than an actual need for food. The continued lack of sleep was always going to catch up and increasing stress was an obvious outcome. No actual cause for stress, but multiple symptoms and my normal outlets 6000 miles away. I wonder if anybody on board has a cat I can cuddle. I should write to the cruise line and recommend this – aren’t ships meant to have a ship’s cat anyway? Maybe it does, I need to ask.

The afternoon was quiet, a proper afternoon off. New York Strip for dinner, literally a slab of meat with two scoops of mash. The Lido is a quick and available place to eat but presentation isn’t a high priority.

My post dinner film was dull enough that I kept falling asleep through it. At 11.30 I decided to go and check the dancing that was meant to be happening, headed down five decks, found the room. 8 people were giving a live performance, six of them on instruments, one oversized lady singing and a skinny man stood beside her with a microphone. This was B.B. King’s All Stars, and I’d caught their final song before they stopped and the room switched to recorded music. There was indeed dancing, two very distinct groups of ladies bopping away. On one side of the dance floor three elderly ladies dancing more with their shoulders than their hips, the classic style they’d have learned at a school disco 40 years ago. On the other side three young black women, all under 25, all dancing in that classic style they’d have learned from their mothers’ descriptions of a school disco 40 years ago.

I fled back to my room. Total distance walked today is over 6km. An empty Lido on the way back:

A quick check of the TV shows that we’re shifting it some. 20 knots North on a heading of 347. Yeah, we left China and headed North. Overnight we switch timezone, an extra hour in bed, then breakfast in Vietnam, a tender to land, no need to return to the ship until gone 10pm. That’s enough time to escape the town even if it does look like smoggy version of Mablethorpe, which I’m confident it wont.

But first, to bed! Going to bed took 20 minutes but did include washing two days of clothing. That’s a full washload for my portable machine and also fits more easily into the bathroom. Sadly it means I don’t get two days of grace during which to enjoy a bathroom that isn’t festooned by clothing but since the shirts take up the space and can be moved into the main cabin and hung from the wall in the morning that’ll be fine. No comment from Asep or Alex about the washing line when they invaded this morning (while I was in Sanya). This evening’s attempt was thwarted by me being in the room already, tomorrow’s schedule and a chocolate handed over instead at the door. That reminds me, I need to research whether Singapore, Australia and New Zealand will allow me to import chocolate. A task for tomorrow..