Travel China and Beyond

Traveling to Sanya (part 2)

Sanya is a good place to relax and enjoy the time off from work, get a tan, enjoy some good seafood and potentially do some nature walks and site seeing. After we spent 3 days in the hotel and at the beach we finally decided to venture out to one of the islands near by. The island we decided to visit is Nanwan Island (otherwise known as Monkey Island).

The island is located about 60km. North east of Sanya. To get there we hired a taxi (for the day). Make sure you pre-negotiate a flat rate for using the cab for the day. We drove to a small harbour (in Lingshui county) and from there you get on a cable car (part of your admission ticket to the nature reserve). The island is a nature reserve for macaques. There are apparently about 1800 in the reserve.

The island vegetation is very interesting and lush. The macaques are also something worth seeing, but here is first a word of caution — do not wear any brightly colored clothes — especially red. Also do not take any candy or food items which are covered in brightly colored paper or foil. The macaques will jump to get them….

To give you an example, while in the park, my wife forgot about the warning and took out a stick of chewing gum from her purse. The gum was covered in yellow paper and foil. In only a few seconds, one of the macaques jumped on her shoulder, really scared my wife, and snatched the stick of gum.

So be warned keep any food items in your bag / purse.

Other than that the trip was very interesting, we took lots of photos of the monkeys (will post them in the photo album area later).

If you have questions about the site and trip let me know.