Written by Khalil Ronjho
Translation from Urdu by Yahya Reki
After a long seminar on “Agriculture, Technology, Innovation, and Management for Belt and Road Countries,” arranged by Foreign Economic Cooperation Center (FECC) in Beijing, we air traveled for four hours and reached Haikou Meilan International Airport. Haikou is a beautiful city in Hainan Province, China. According to the organizers, the province is an example of modern agricultural China, where we would learn more. It is a large agricultural and tourism point and southern province, where anyone can get access to, through the airplane or by sea.
12 years ago, people were not aware of the beauty of this region, but now it has become a tourist point not only for China but for the entire world. A person needs to travel 2,280 kilometers by air from Beijing to reach Haikou.
People feel fresh and better. Local governments arrange competition programs of beautification among villages and the village that wins gets a prize. The government has educated people on how to keep their culture alive and spend their lives well. All the participants of the seminar were curious to see this model. We then reached Shomi village which has been developed, after the development work of 6 months in Chong-Shi city.
People were seen in different groups delighting the tourists in the village. Bamboo Dance is also part of the village culture. There is a trolley vehicle service for tourists in beautiful village, which gives them a tour of four sides of village in just 15 minutes and drops them on entry point. Islamabad can only compete with Chinese village in beautification.
There are a large number of palm and coconut trees in Hainan which have been planted by local government to make it world’s second-biggest tourist point. There are also mango, guava, pineapple and other fruits on mountains. Mango trees are not taller than 3 meters but gives a lot of fruit during the season. “Totapuri” mango type from Pakistan is a special output here and is very tasty. Due to land fertility, people also cultivate rice and maze here.
There is a paddy field park for research and for the development of agriculture, where they are cultivating 500 kinds of rice, along with Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. They also have a lot of agricultural science and technology parks and other research centres, which underdeveloped countries take centuries to develop. Coconut is used in different foods here. If you stay on rent or in resort, they will present sea foods and coconuts on table with rice. Organizers of seminars served us sea food, as it is halal for us. They take extra care in foods. Our guide, Miss Ellis made sure the availability of tasty food and we relaxed after eating.
There are high-speed trains for going to other cities in Hainan province. Due to mountains, they have made a large number of tunnels to make journey easy. They wash roads on daily basis and there are colourful flowers on road sides, which look like paintings. Government has established online Taxi service, which is cheaper than private Taxi service. High speed train travels with the speed of 250 kilometres per hour (km/h) during the journey.
After Haikou, we reached Sanya city, which links up with 14 countries, with a network of 30 airports. It has a population of 7,65,000 people, and 258 kilometre sea-shore. Weather is clear for 7 hours every day and the temperature is 25 °C. Weather was very pleasant for tourism and enjoyment.
To attract people, there is an arrival visa facility for 59 countries, but we came to know that Pakistan is not on this list. People can get a resort and a guest house for 40,000 in Sanya city. Locals also constructed rooms for tourists in their homes. The biggest brands of hotels are present here. Atlantis Dubai’s second-biggest branch is here, which was opened in April 2018, for tourists. Tourists can see the aquarium, visit underwater restaurants and other parks for 500 Yuan in this resort. After hiking for 2 hours in Lin Chun Ling Forest Park, people can enjoy the view of the city from the top of watchtower.
69 percent of Sanya is situated in forests and it has 19 percent seashore. Hundreds of new married couples were having photo sessions and were enjoying the pleasant moments of their lives. I missed Lasbela, Gaddani and Kund Malir after witnessing Sanya’s sea-view. There is a helicopter to see the city from air. People also enjoy surfing. International film festivals and Miss World events are also arranged here.
If I do not mention glass suspension bridge in my blog, then I will be unjust to Chinese technology. We were told to visit the famous glass suspension bridge. I came to know that there are a lot of glass bridges in China. People feel scared while crossing. We, Pakistani and Brazilian friends, reached Shiniuzhai National Geological Park, where a glass suspension bridge, 540 metres above sea-level has been constructed. They used 24 milli-metre thick glass, which is 25 percent harder than normal glass. The constructor of bridge said that it will not break if anyone jumps on it and people will not fall down even after the breaking of glass. It felt crazy to walk on the bridge and we were wet with sweat, whenever we looked down. But we crossed the glass-bridge like brave men, while some people crawled.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are those of the author and Balochistan Voices not necessarily agrees with them.
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