After our crazy days in Beijing, our plan was to go to Shanghai for the Universal Exhibition. We wanted to claim to the world we had done Paris > Shanghai by train !

But the first week of October was a National Holiday week for China. 1.2 Biliions Chinese were traveling that week! So we couldn’t find any train from Beijing to Shanghai (except accepting a 30 hours ride standing in the restaurant carriage as there was no seat left elsewhere… no thank you).

We didn’t like the option of taking a direct flight to Shanghai. If we had to fly, we prefered to look for some fancy destination before going to Shanghai. We ended up finding a good deal going to Sanya and staying in a top notch Hilton hotel. Sanya is at the south of Hainan Island, south of China and under the tropics. Pictures we found on the web sounded promising: palm trees, long white sand beaches, luxurious spa-resort by the sea. A real tropical paradise.

What we forgot to do though, was to check the weather. When we arrived in Sanya we discovered it the hard way. The island was under its worse floods of the last 50 years !!

So we enjoyed the hotel, with some bed jumpings (and some amazing massages, and some amazing food and cocktails)

 

It wasn’t that bad because, even if it rained A LOT, it was a so hot that we had no problem in going for a swim in the sea or the numerous swimming pools (one of the pool had a restaurant. Ever ate a hamburger standing on a stool in a pool ? That’s awesome).

 

Overall it has been a great and relaxing weekend.