FIRST-TIME visitors to China's southern sea-and-surf capital, with its year-round balmy weather, may initially find it hard to get their bearings. Its sights are spread over a surprisingly large area and it would require two or three busy days to take everything in. Most foreign visitors end up in the exclusive Yalong Bay, which is about 20 minutes east of Sanya city. Dadonghai Beach, a lively, more proletarian version of Yalong, abuts the eastern side of the city, while Sanya Bay - which sees few foreign visitors - sprawls away to the west, past the airport and the 'End of the Earth' (Tianya Haijiao), to the new Nanshan Culture Zone, with its record-breaking statue of Guanyin. Take your pick from our selection of sights below and leave some time for lounging poolside or at Yalong Bay's splendid beach.
Luhuitou Park
The park celebrates a local legend about a hunter who pursued a deer for 99 days only to have it turn into a beautiful maiden just as he was about to kill it with an arrow (they married and lived happily ever after, it goes without saying). But it does not quite fall into the category of must dos. The best thing about it is the rickety fairground cable car to the top and the views of Sanya City and Sanya Bay when you get there.
West Island
Definitely a runner-up to Wuzhizhou, West Island, or Xidao, is a sleepy place circled in part by a narrow road serviced by small electric buses. What were not so long ago fishing villages (the houses are made of coral) line the waterfront, but most of the locals are now involved in the tourism industry.
Tianya Haijiao