If the New Silk Road Model Contest is not for you – or your wife is planning the China trips – as any Sanya fun guide will be quick to point out, the International Wedding Festival runs every year in November. Couples renew their vows, get married, and celebrate their anniversaries before the aforementioned ROCKS. Divers will head to Wuzhizhou Island for underwater adventures.

To sample the fabled hot springs and spas of Nantian stop by the Sanya Pearl River Nantian Hotspring Resort that boasts over 60 steaming pools – all at different temperatures – along with fairly modern rooms and villas. The springs in this area are attributed with medicinal and curative powers. At any rate you’ll feel refreshed and it won’t break the bank.

The hot springs are open 8am till 11pm. The place is about a 30-minute drive north from Yalong Bay on the East Expressway and less than 10 minutes from Haitang Bay. A dip in the spa pools will set you back just Rmb198 per person per day with water temperatures ranging from 39C to a zesty 45C. Some pools are more private than others but expect a communal dip with gleeful crowds especially at the fun pool for kids with water slides and a host of splashdown equipment.

Expect garden areas, a lake, hammocks, and various room types (there are over 500 choices but you would never guess it looking at the place China travel deals ). Pick a spot next to a field or close to the springs.

The top end here is a Villa Suite that is pushed for honeymooners. Expect gleaming wood floors and fairly contemporary surrounds though this is of course not in the same league as Haitang Bay neighbours. A spa is on hand and a 60-minute Bali Royal Massage will pinch Rmb588 from your wallet.

Alternatively drive up into the hills to gawp at vanishing tribal communities like the Miao, Li and Hui. Later, stroll through Longevity Valley Holidays in China near the historic Nanshan Temple where the folk just live on and on and on, watched over by the more recent and towering addition of the 108m Guanyin Statue (also Kuan Yin).

There is even a Longevity Festival in September. The temple with its beautiful golden deities and swirling incense high above a series of stepped pavilions and gates was once a place of serene mystic contemplation. Somewhere along the way it turned into Disneyland. The temple is at the heart of the vast Nanshan Cultural Tourism Zone, a bustling cultural theme park within tropical forest and parkland, where tourists on trolleybuses trundle around sights like the “Dharma Door of Nonduality”, “Auspicious Garden”, and the “Brahma Bells Collection Garden”.

If all this leaves you flummoxed, try the “Tree Houses” or the vegetarian restaurant. It costs Rmb150 to enter the complex and you’ll need another ticket to board the trolley car. The authorities are pushing for conventions to fill hotel rooms and villas. Still, it is a pleasant enough excursion. When you see the t-shirt and trinket stalls you immediately know you are somewhere special and spiritual. After all, isn’t that how they do it over in Thailand and Bali? Nanshan Temple is a 50-minute to one-hour drive from Yalong Bay along the Western Expressway on the southwest of Hainan Island China shopping. From Yalong it’ll cost about Rmb150 one way. Book a roundtrip. Just up the coast is scenic Sanya Nanshan Dongtian Park