It's Haikou, Not Haiku

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry; Haikou is a town at the north end of the southernmost island, Hainan, in China, almost to Vietnam.  We had a warm welcome from the officials, the lion dancers and a group who danced over moving poles.

Not too many cruise ships stop here, so there is a shortage of qualified guides.  Darrell took the included tour of the city with one of the less qualified ones.  The main attraction was the old architecture and shopping.

I made it!

 I had an excellent guide for my tour to the national park around an extinct volcano.  The view was obscured by off and on rain, but the vegetation made for an interesting climb to the rim of the old volcano.  The only drawback was the number of steps it took to get the view down into the volcano.

We were served an interesting meal Chinese style.  The center of the table was a large turntable.  One dish after another was placed on this so each person could dish up some of the food before turning the table so the next person could serve himself.  While we were eating, a troop of dancers performed on the stage which was about 4 feet from our table.  One of the performers, a man I am sure, sang with a soprano voice.



















The second part of my tour was at a Mangrove Preservation Park.  We visited a small museum which showed some of the birds, fish and animals that live there.  Then we walked on a boardwalk over the mangrove swamp.  At the end of the walk there was a flock of flamingos from Cuba.  I am not sure why they were there except maybe to show that they liked the habitat.

They danced and fought and preened for a while, then, as if on cue, they all walked off to the back of the pond where we no longer had a good view of them. It was the parade of the flamingos.