Disappointment in the Middle Kingdom
China, the island of Hainan met us with warm evening air and long processing of an individual visa. A nice Chinese guy-translator under the pseudonym Sasha takes us to a five-star hotel with the trivial name Palm beach hotel and spa, where we are waiting for a Christmas dinner imposed by the operator, for which we are hopelessly late, but we are still glad that we escaped from snowy Moscow and New Year's Eve. salad Olivier. we consume a cold dinner, washing it down with some kind of nasty, but for some reason expensive wine, but God bless him, we are already on vacation. Acquaintance with the resort begins the next morning with a sightseeing tour of the city, the purpose of which is to stupidly swindle the tourist for money, passing off a visit to ordinary show rooms, for a tour of the "factory" and tea, and silk, and pearls, and snakes, sharks and everything. everything that is in China. But we "grated" rolls "are all over the place, and satisfied that we did not fall for the bait, we study a colorful poster in the lobby of our hotel inviting for BBQ dinner. But instead of the promised incendiary pool party, we are met by two frightened Chinese with five skewers of cold meat or fish, and completely unable to explain what they offer. The restaurant is deservedly empty, a rat runs lazily, attracted by the silence and pleasant smells for it. Come on, let's go to a restaurant for Russians with the "mysterious" name "Lena". Having caught a motor rickshaw on a dark, dull street, we go. The name justified itself - to the wheezing chanson and the loud cries of a tipsy company performing dance moves, peeped at a cheap striptease club, we had a pretty tasty dinner, having paid an impressive bill. Then we still did not suspect what a problem it would be to find an edible dinner for yourself in the evening, thinking only that you would not be poisoned first, and then cheated. In general, the feeling of constant deception did not leave us until the end of the trip. The sea, well, of course the sea, can save our somehow, not quite successfully started holiday. The beach, located on the third line from the hotel, was clean enough, "well-worn" sunbeds really had to be borrowed in the morning, there was no entertainment other than swimming in the muddy but warm waves of the South China Sea. The most interesting activity from which our beach morning began was a "fancy" conversation with Chinese women hung with a huge amount of pearl threads. “Karasiva, nidaraga, ” she shakes in front of her sun-roasted face, multi-colored pearls, chewing some kind of local chewing gum, from which her mouth turns bright orange, smacking her lips for especially fastidious customers, takes out glasses from her bag, packed in a box, really beautiful beads. "Kunya, Kunya, bring bigger ones! " - "Zafftra, Zaftra" - answers the kunya and leaves, moving his hips heavily towards other less picky vacationers. Eh, dear "Kunya" we will not have Hainan tomorrow, in the evening we will fly away from here forever, and no excursions to monkey islands and snake farms can compare with you, dear pearl Kunya!
