Sun sea & cement: Hainan

"Warm prompt: Beware of falling objects!" says the sign in the toilet of carriage seven of the Harbin-Haikou train. Showing a picture of a Rolex watch, it is a gentle reminder not to drop your stuff into the toilet.

"Oh, China!" I laugh indulgently as I snap a photo of yet another wonderful Chinglish-ism.

A couple of hours and three beers later I do not laugh quite so loudly when my camera, in its pack, drops from my belt, hits the floor with a sickening thud and bounces into that toilet.

"Ha ha! What, did you have to pick it up and clean it off? Yuck. LOL," will say the few people I'll be able to tell this story to when I return from a 10-day tour of Hainan Island. These people, though, clearly aren't familiar with long-distance Chinese trains. If they were, they would know that on such a train, the toilets are the squatting type only, and that there is no U-bend from which someone who's not too fastidious can fish out a Rolex watch, say, or a camera. No, it's the ground, disappearing beneath you at 90km/h, taking your watch (or camera) with it forever.

That's why the train builders put up the sign; not for my amusement.

Is this how our much-awaited trip to the tropical paradise of Hainan will be?

Ever since we almost froze to death in Guizhou province last Christmas, my travel companion, Andrew, has sworn: "China trip good, but no more cold. Only tropical paradise from now on." And Hainan, only a 14-hour train ride from Guangzhou, seemed to fit the ticket. The photos on the travel websites showed nothing but white sandy beaches and palm trees. To me it looked quite boring, but we could always take day trips into the mountains. "Unless they're too chilly," Andrew added.