You won’t find many rainforests in China, but there is one at the southern island/province of Hainan not too far away from Sanya – the Yanoda Rainforest. As most things go in China, especially in a Chinese tourist heaven like Sanya, this rainforest is over-commercialized and very crowded. You won’t get lost in the deep forests along rare plants and animals, heck – it’s even hard to get away from the Chinese tour-group crowds, but still – it’s refreshing to visit a tropical rain-forest in a country like China.
You can easily spend a day in there, with tour-buses leaving in the morning from Sanya and brining you back late evening, most times with a combo for a late-evening spectacular acrobat show somewhere in Sanya. It’s a five A tourist attraction, which means that it’s generally very nicely done and has all the facilities you’ll need to make you feel comfortable as a lazy tired Chinese tourist looking for some fun – even too comfortable, way too comfortable.
The view from the top of the mountain at the heart of the rainforest, mind you, is spectacular, and on a clear day you can see very far away, atleast all the way to Sanya.
The Sanya Web has the intro :
Yanoda Rainforest Tourism Zone is situated apart from 18km to the high way of Sanya-Haikou, and only 35 km from the downtown of Sanya City. The site has a total planning area of 45 square kilometers encircled by an ecological protection area of 123 square kilometers. The total investment of the project will be about RMB3.9 billion.
Yanoda has already built two scenic zones, the Rainforest Valley and the Dreamworld Valley. All spots are connected by totally 18km inner ring roads with the traffic means of American battery cars, high-class shuttle buses, plank roads alongside cliffs and suspension bridges on waterfalls. The Rainforest Valley contains six rainforest wonders such as plant strangle, flower basket, old Stems Blossom, great roots, intertwined vines and huge stones embraced by roots. All these natural scenes are symbolizing the essential features of the five major rainforests in Hainan Island. In the valleys, designed artfuly according to the landscape and the mountain terrain, the plank roads lead to the deep forest, the stone staircase twist up at both sides of the huge rocks, the suspension bridges sway in midair, the steel hawsers cross up to the mountain through the waterfalls. Visitors here can feel tranquility and the mystery in the deep forest, enjoy the joyfulness of playing waterfalls, and experience the pleasant surprise and the quiver of emotion on the fantastic sky bridges in Yanoda.
How bad can commercialism get with a rainforest, you ask? What do I mean by over-commercialized?
Take this, for example :
So you’ll see and hear those things all along the rain-forest trails.
Also, you’ll see lots of the local minority people dressed up and ready to entertain…
But, aside from all that, ofcourse there’s lots to see and admire in terms of the local vegetation and flora…
The parks they built there are very Chinese style, family friendly, and not too distasteful…
Location :
Definitely one of the nicest attractions in the Sanya area, if you’re tired of the Sanya Chinese style beaches.