Sanya Li and Miao Village, Hainan, China

4MagdelineTan 5:00 PM Jul 9, 2012

Miao Village
We purchased the Groupon voucher for this family trip comprising of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. Beware of those additional which your guide asked you to pay. If you find that there is no value or not worth, dont join nor pay. We are asked to pay RMB650 to visit few places and some meals, which we did not complies all. We join for those we find worthwhile. We paid about SGD30 per person to enter Miao Village. Any meals on your own will be much delicious and money-worth than what the guide brings you. Talking about Miao, there is this unique and fun culture whereby Miao people make fun of you by using their buttock to knock onto yours, you have to be sponteneous though. During this visit, we learnt that it is mandatory for Miao men to learn the skill to make a beautiful crown for their future wife. The bigger and gorgeous the crown, the better and glamorous is the bride. As for Miao women, they learn the black magic which some women will make it for their newly wed husband to drink. In the event, husband stays faithful, such black magic will not harm the men. They sells fresh coconuts which is good to have in such hot weather. The weather is hot in Hainana and not much wind, unless you at the beach. Feel it is hotter than Singapore. Majority of hotel's lobby and famous places of interest does not offers aircon. Nevertheless, we are glad no rainy weather during our trip in mid June 2012.

4walkingonclouds 5:00 PM Aug 28, 2012

Interesting!
My family went before I went with my friend... thus we got some tips from them Some tips would be... 1) TO NOT GO DURING SUMMER! HOT HOT HOT! 2) Hiring a guide might be a wise choice! 3) Wear shorts/jeans and walking shoes, ladies you would not want to wear dresses and high heels when you are walking up a hill and having to take flying fox! 4) Bring mineral water, walking up a hill is a good work out 5) Up and down terrain might not be an ideal place to bring those who have physical disability as I did not see ramps/lifts... only stairs Took a long distance bus from Sanya bus station (towards Bao Ting) and stopped immediately outside the Li and Miao site Decided to hire a guide I forgot how much it was... Hiring a guide was a fantastic idea as he brought us around to try all those complimentary stuff (e.g. own specialty wine, tea, flying fox). The guide is called Ah Niu牛. Being a guide he had to 'check-in' at almost every stall that is selling goodies, am VERY GLAD that he wasn't those kind of pushy guy asking us to buy stuff. What I didn't like was that (I suspect) the guide has a time frame for bringing every tourist around, thus he talked really quickly... There was this performance with bamboo sticks, an elaborate performance!(similar to the Malay dance with bamboo sticks ) Love how the Li and Miao people dressed in their beautiful colourful costumes. The ticket is pretty costly... If I am not wrong it was RMB180+/- but... at least there are complimentary stuff like tea, and wine you get to try :) Also, a chance to sit the complimentary flying fox! Was extremely fun!!!