Day 1

Landed in Sanya at two in the afternoon. Coming out of the terminal, the heat hit from the ground up — not the dry heat of the north, but wet, like someone pressing a hot towel against your face.

The taxi to the hotel was stuck in traffic for a long time. The driver kept the windows down and didn’t run the air conditioning. He said it wouldn’t help, this is just the temperature here. Coconut palms along the road, coconut vendors, an old man drying something in a courtyard. I asked the driver what it was. He said he didn’t know, maybe bodhi seeds, people grow them around here.

The hotel was on the water. I dropped my bags on the bed and went straight to the beach and sat there for an hour doing nothing.

Dinner at the night market: oysters, mantis shrimp, a whole lobster. The lobster was steamed plain, dipped in sand ginger sauce, the meat very sweet. My friend said seafood here is half the price of central Sanya because we weren’t staying in the tourist area. I didn’t care about the price. I cared about that sand ginger sauce. I’ve been trying to find the recipe ever since and haven’t managed it.

Day 2

Woken up by the waves at six.

Pulled back the curtain. The sky wasn’t fully light yet, the sea was deep blue. I went downstairs in my pyjamas and walked the beach for half an hour, feet sinking into wet sand, each step leaving a print that the waves slowly erased.

Snorkelling in the morning. The instructor was a local guy in his twenties, spoke fast, ran through the safety instructions and jumped in. Underwater everything was quiet — just the sound of my own breathing and the distant blur of the current. I saw a small blue fish moving in and out of the coral. I followed it for a while. It wasn’t afraid of me.

Slept for three hours in the afternoon.

Day 3

My friend wanted to go to the duty-free mall. I went with her.

The mall was enormous, crowded, aggressively air-conditioned. She spent forty minutes at the perfume counter and bought a bottle she could have bought in Beijing for two hundred yuan less. I stopped at a small stall nearby — the vendor was selling various bracelets, star-moon bodhi, rudraksha, agarwood. I picked up a star-moon strand. The surface had tiny white star-like dots scattered across it, and a pale curved line, bent like a crescent. The vendor said it was local Hainan material — the humidity here is right, so the star markings come out clearly. Inland ones are faint, not as good.

I bought a strand. Unprocessed, no polish, sixty-eight yuan.

My friend said: what do you need that for.

I said: I don’t know. I just liked it.

Day 4

Rented a car and drove to Wuzhishan.

Completely different from the coast — humid, dense trees, the air carrying a smell of decomposing leaves, not unpleasant, a deep vegetable smell. Someone selling coconuts by the road, five yuan each, opened with a cleaver, the juice spraying out, sweet with a faint bitterness. We walked in the mountains for a long time with no destination, taking every fork we came across. Found a small village — chickens on the road, an old man sitting in a doorway, children following us at a distance. We bought two jackfruits from someone’s yard. Too heavy to carry properly. We ate half and left the rest in the car. The whole afternoon the car smelled sweet.

Driving back after dark, the mountain road was narrow, trees on both sides, the headlights reaching only a short distance ahead.

Day 5

Went for Wenchang chicken.

The skin is yellow, thin, with a fine layer of fat underneath. You eat it dipped in ginger and spring onion oil. The rice is cooked in chicken broth, with a crust at the bottom of the pot. I had two bowls of rice. This does not happen in Beijing.

No plans in the afternoon. Walked the small streets near the hotel. Fresh-pressed sugarcane juice, a bag of dried mango, sat down in a place with no sign and had a coconut coffee. The owner was a middle-aged woman who didn’t say anything, just brought it over and went back to what she was doing.

Last evening on the beach. The waves were bigger than the previous days, the wind stronger, hair everywhere. I sat on the sand for a long time. A couple nearby taking photos, an old man walking a dog, a few children chasing the waves.

I left after it was fully dark.

Day 6

Five a.m. flight. Had to leave at four.

Didn’t sleep. Just packed. The hotel lobby was empty, the front desk a young woman who’d just started her shift, eyes not fully open. Outside still dark, the air carrying the smell of the sea.

Slept on the plane. When we landed the sky outside was grey, thin fog on the ground.

I zipped up my jacket and walked into the jetway.