KTA(Hainan,China) ROAD TRIP

Venue two of the KTA 2010/2011 was Wenchang on the northeast coast of Hainan Island, China. The entire Maelstorm team went for the event. 19 hours on the night bus from our HQ in Zhuhai.

An epic journey on a sleeper bus built for the body size of 10 year olds. Cramped and muscle sore does not define the body bending conditions we faced on the sleeper bus. 4 hours of tooling around to collect passengers in 3 other cities and finally we were on the road. Around 7pm we pulled over for a dinner of beaks-and-feet and skanky toilets. Luckily none of us used the toilets prior to gagging down our meal. Back on the road and the epic drive continued.

Hitting the national road #207 was a near death experience. What was a dual twin carriage way road was now reduced to 2 opposing lanes of traffic on the same side. Container trucks were coming at us head on in both lanes forcing our driver into the rough shoulder at 50km. The pot holes were bone shattering and for 3 hours there was no sleep to be had. Seat belts on the bed bunks were all that kept us from flopping off onto the floor or the bunks below.

Boarding the RORO ferry was no easy feat and after 90 min of loading we had a 90 min sail across to Haikou harbour. The ferry was a skank machine with a deafening volume of noise blaring out of the 4 TVs positioned around the cabin. Toss in the constant cigarette stink and cold wind blowing in through missing windows and it was 90 min of near torture. We were all relieved to get off the ferry and back on the bus for the final 90 min drive to Wenchang town. After 19 hours from the start of our journey, we finally arrived at the Bai Jin Hotel on the beach where the KTA was being hosted.

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