Week 3

Monday arrived and along with it so did our first group of kids. There were 20 of the blighters all from an international school based in Hong Kong. After checking the kids (and ourselves) into the hotel we played some team building games, which included "monkey see, monkey do" type games as well as a tree hugging game (!?) and a game called "Baby, do you love me?". We headed to the local beach (1 min away) and took the kids swimming. Whilst supervising the kids in the water I kept stepping on lots of small pebbles - on closer inspection I found out that these were actually hermit crabs! There are literally thousands of them... After splashing around for a bit longer we lunched, had a few more games and then had dinner at the hotel. After dinner the kids went swimming in the resort pool.

Tuesday was supposed to be a day of surfing at Hou Hai beach. Unfortunately the swell was too excessive so we kept the kids at Yalong Bay where the waves were good for beginners. The morning was spent tutoring the kids. Lunch involved another beach picnic. More surfing followed until about 5 o'clock when we packed up the surf gear and headed up to Hou Hai for camping. The tents are pretty basic dome jobs that are useless in the wind, but this was fine as the weather is pretty docile here (accept the heat of course). Night time brought more team building games such as "Pass the fruit" and "Balance the water!". Bed time for the kids was 10:00.

On Wednesday we packed up the tents, had breakfast and journeyed to good 'ol Yanoda. We took the kids on the gorge climb during which I spied a species of small frog clinging to a rock plus some sort of freshwater crab. Lunch followed the climb - traditional Chinese food. The rainforest hike was next. I was acting as the group rearguard for the hike and managed to spot a tree crab that everyone else missed! This shows you how blind people our to such things - it was pretty obvious to a naturalist! After the hike we set up camp at Yanoda and went to dinner. We were entertained while we ate by traditional music and bamboo pole dancing.

Thursday involved the school visit I mentioned on last weeks blog. On arriving we were greeted by the local school kids and the teachers. Our school kids split into groups (with a Hainan Adventures instructor at the head of each) and began to teach some of the local kids some games - which they loved! After the games we had a traditional lunch of boiled rice. This is done by filling a hollow piece of bamboo with rice and water which is then placed into the glowing red coals of a fire, the rice cooks and expands and is extracted by splitting the bamboo down the side. The split bamboo can now serve as a plate - although a rather warm one! After lunch we painted the alphabet on one of the school buildings - the local kids were amazed at the paints we brought and couldn't resist dipping their fingers (as well as sticks) into our paint cans... We also repainted the blackboards! After this we gave the kids a pencil case each as well as pens, pencils and exercise books. The children at this school were amazing, they have very little in terms of materialistic possessions yet they are truly very happy with their lot in life. There is a lesson to be learned here I think... Once we were done at the school we waved goodbye to the kids and took our group back to their resort where we had dinner.

On Friday we took the kids to the airport and sent them off to Hong Kong with Hainan Adventures apparel!

The weekend was dominated by the Surfing Hainan Open. The competition was held at a reef break further round the coast from Hou Hai. Sadly the best swell had occurred over the previous weekend (generated by a typhoon) and the waves were very small. The shortboard heats struggled to generate much excitement due to the tiny surf. The longboard heats fared better with some long rides. During the comp I headed to the right of the beach where there are number of strewn boulders. I found little of interest at the rocks except hundreds of small hermit crabs (again)!