We had a three day weekend and an invitation from a friend to visit his hometown of 黄流 in 乐东 County. By the time I’d finished teaching at five, hastily thrown a few things in a bag, forgotten my cell phone (loaded with books, podcasts, and games) on the table, and caught a cab in the rain to the bus station though; all the buses to Ledong County had left. No problem, we decided, and proceeded to play bus roulette. Have you played it? It goes like this: You show up at the bus station and take the next available bus to anywhere it happens to be going. We cheated a little by taking the next available bus that was going at least in the general direction of Ledong. Try it sometime, the results are always entertaining.
Tickets to 八所 (a town I’d never heard of) in hand, we decided to buy a map of 海南 and see where we were going. It was on the coast! Excellent. There seemed to be some tourist attractions nearby as well. A hot springs, which I nixed as I had an ear infection, was forbidden to swim, and had not brought a bathing suit. There was also this place called 万人坑. Ten-thousand person…check dictionary…hole? with no idea what that meant, it was close to the ocean and we’d see if we could find it!
