Well they really did it this time, they actually came and carted me off in black vans with tinted windows, and wouldn't say where we going. but the vans were very modern and had powerful air-conditioning, and the naval police were very pissed about the kilo of rotting prawns 小美 was carrying.

It all started one night last week in Hainan, at the 168 restaurant. we decided to go fishing the next day, and i very much wanted to loll around on a small boat and jump into the sea for a dip whenever i was too hot. we spoke to our host at the restaurant (a good local restaurateur is the tourists best friend in Hainan) who was to organise everything for the next days trip. we arranged a picnic lunch for the day and drove to the restaurant around 09:00. 小美 was a young girl waiter there and she was to accompany us for the day. so off we went in another taxi and found our way into this little port hidden behind backstreets on the edges of sanya city, having bought some prawns at a fish market on the way there. the irony of this tale is that i don't even know where we went and couldn't find it on a map if i had to.

we paid for some port entry tickets, as there are always some tickets to be bought in this country, and everyone was gawking unashamedly at 'the  foreigner'. you get over this after about 18months. we then bought some cheap hand reels and went to find a skipper. we had been told that half a day would cost ¥60 ($9) for a skipper and a boat, so the first ugly seadog that wanted ¥200 was very easy to walk away from. we found our skipper and a boat and were soon chugging across the water to the deafening chugs coming from the above-board home-made diesel engine. after 20mins my ears had gone numb and we pulled into this grotty little fishing village, as seen above. "are we getting something here?" i enquired hopefully. "Yes" i was told. relief! "We will get fishing here!" at least the boat engine was off.  we moored and scampered off onto the wooden planks amongst these fish farmers. about 10 metres away someone started up a diesel engine to operate their fish mincing machine. you can see one of the workers in the background of the pics in the gallery (click on the pic above).

after some time the charm of our little spot wore off on my companions and we decided to go out to somewhere "cleaner". the skipper informed us there was no where quiet we could go. so off we head into the sun, passing by this amazing collection of boats. about 20 of little junks linked together by umbrellas and bed sheets, that apparently are an floating (illegal) mahjong casino. there were also some Chinese navy vessels in the background so i thought it best not to take any snapshots. thank god for that wee bit of sense!

Today is 27 April 2004

and i am

aj