Yalong Wan - an Australian beach in China

Tough way to spend your Christmas holiday break.
See more images by timbeckenham at flickr.

It is not often that an Australian will outrightly state that a beach is deemed worthy of being Australian. That could be seen as un-Australian, but with all the ongoings back home over the past 10 months, I'm sure that the Australia I came from doesn't appear to the be the Australia that I know.

Political & social feelings aside, the Yalong Bay area has a great beach. It is sheltered bay blessed with oodles of golden sand. The beach itself is wide and flat, and has a gentle sloping bank down into the clear 22ºC water. The beach itself is carved up off-shore into use areas - netted swimming areas (maintained by the resorts with a stake in particular beach areas) and water sport areas where everything goes.

Yalong Bay is a four and five star resort area. Sheraton, Holiday Inn are nestled in among many others, with the cheapest rooms advertised for RMB1000 per night. This being China, the real price upon negotiation is about half, depending on the time of year. We went during the peak season, and without bookings, we trudged around the area trying to find an available place. We got sick of this, and fell back to our B plan which was a 3 star hotel about 15 minutes walk away from the beach. We then settled in for a few days of laziness, beach trips, sampling the restaurants and bars at most of Yalong Wan's resorts.

We found this was just what we needed. If you were looking for more activities, being a guest in one of the resorts or being part of a tour package is the way to go. We found the tourism around Sanya really focused on these two areas. The catering for the self-organised tourist was really poor. It was difficult to get around the area of Sanya (it is really spread out), so that RMB50-100 taxi rides aren't uncommon. There were few buses servicing the Sanya area, and even less going to the surrounding towns. Linda tried valiantly to get to see some of the outer areas where minority villages were found after I returned to Shanghai for work with no success.

Overall, I was happy with my holiday in Yalong Bay. The location is great and it caters well for the well-to-do tourist interested in aquatic sports.

I have posted some pictures on my Flickr page if you're curious about the location.

I will write a little more about our Christmas Holiday in Hainan in another entry - there's more to tell.

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