We’re up at 7:45 am today to finalise packing, check out and sort transport

It seems the traffic is pretty horrendous as it takes our driver about 40 minutes to reach us before we’ve even got in the car!

We get to BKK airport to quickly check in and drop our bags followed by a hasty trip through the terminal – we pick up McDonald’s for breakfast and a coffee from Coffee Club before boarding our plane

The flight serves us some food as well and even lands about an hour earlier than expected, into Haikou!

Usually, this would be a over-joyous win.. however, we are actually waiting here for another flight which is in 11 (now 12) hours ????

We get through passport control and collect our checked bags to get a coffee from McDonald’s while we form some sort of plan

Our priority is to not have our large checked bags with us if we do decide to do anything so we pop to the airport’s enquiry centre and are told to head to somewhere called “left luggage”

To us this sounds like abandoned or lost luggage but it is actually where you can store your bags for under £2 a day

We are also recommended a location for the city so we get to it – first point of call is grabbing a railway ticket, which we attempt to do twice as we hadn’t realised we could only pay cash, though it’s only about 80p for us both!

The train is in about 40 minutes so we wander around the nearby mall to kill this time

The train is pretty efficient to Haikou Eastern Railway

Once we’re out into the square, we stumble on a taxi rank and manage to sort a price to get to Qilou Old Street, for just 30¥ (appximately £3)

We arrive at the vibrant, busy area and stroll around the streets with chaotic food and goods stalls – it seems Chinese new year celebrations are in full flow (see the featured image)

There are many stalls selling freshly-made juice so we have to give it a go – very yummy

Sadly, there are a few points of clear animal cruelty violations, including cages too small for rabbits and basically keyrings with fish and terrapins in

Dave spots a fancy looking place, called SNT & TEA, which appears to be selling traditional Hainan teahouse and there’s a place to try some samples

As it’s quite nice in here, we opt to go upstairs to the restaurant to have some snicky-snacks

After, we wiggle through the streets and cross the road to find the Haikou Clock Tower on the waterfront

This has a continuous light and sound show on it and uses a recording of big ben bell for different points of the hour

We manage to rangle another taxi to the airport as it’s getting late, for 70¥, and get dinner sorted at McDonald’s which is bizarrely KFC-styled

Before midnight, we collect our luggage and get checked in followed by going through security and passport control to boarding our flight