This is an annual pilgrimage for the Hainanese Song Heng association in Singapore. A delegation of volunteers has been visiting Hainan Island in China every year for the past 3 years to perform surgery, see General Practice patients and visit the School for the Deaf. The mission site is at Wen Chang district hospital as well as the Song Heng village.
This is my 2nd visit, Chris’ and Madison’s 1st!! (well, as a hitchhiker in my belly!)
The trip starts on 9/12/2007
We take Tiger Airways flight TR 936 from the Budget Terminal, together with 60 other volunteers, a mixture of doctors, nurses, medical students and non medical support staff.
… the flight was scheduled to leave Singapore at 1245h, but after a series of delays we leave close to 2 PM. How would I rate Tiger Airways?? ... it pales in comparison to Virgin Airlines, as it does not offer any complimentary drinks and officially disallows food or drink to be brought in from outside! There is no entertainment, compared with individual LCD screens that Virgin America offers. But…it is budget and the tickets can get really cheap…
We arrive at Haikou international airport close to 6 PM, gather the luggage and take the mandatory group photo. After what seems like an interminable duration, everyone manages to pack into 3 chartered buses. During the madness of boarding passengers and baggage, the bus driver accidently activates the door, shutting onto Sister Goh’s hand! It was a blessing that she escaped unscathed apart from a rude shock.
Darkness has fallen by the time we get to Waika Hotel, the only 5 star establishment in town. We head straight for a banquet dinner which consisted of multiple dishes of duck, vegetable and soup. Surprisingly the omnipresent famous TOUGH HAINAN CHICKEN was absent! Dinner was quite good, but we were famished.
The day ended with a briefing for the group… A “special task force”( ie SUCKERS made of people under the age of 21)—was organised to leave at 0630h to prepare the village clinic for the doctors and nurses to run!
Day 2:
It was a TERRIBLE night… don’t get me wrong, the room was fantastic, beds were comfortable but then dear old Chris got a severe case of GASTRO!!
So basically we are up from like ??0430h , with him visiting the lavatory regularly!! And Madison
wakes as well and starts to KICK real hard… she likes to do that on holidays, I notice!so...out comes the Ciprofloxacin/imodium …
Morning call then rings at 0630 on the dot, we drag ourselves up, get dressed and go down to brekkie…which seriously SUCKED..
Lets see: Plain congee ( which is actually great for Chris, ironically), some salted veg, mantou, fried noodle and some baked bun.
Then we all split up : 1 group to Wen Chang hospital ( Dr Foo Chee Liam, Dr Chong , Chris and Kai Rui-med student) and the rest of us head down to the village clinic.
We get to the clinic just before 0900h, and its not long before the crowds start and we begin to see patients. Its more organised this year, with different areas for :triage, BP/glucometer, consult and pharmacy. A minor operating suite is set up in the recently renovated wing.
There are 6 doctors this year, 2 per consult room. Ma and I are in one, Dr Lily Aw and Dr Chay are in the next and finally Dr Sebastian Wong and Dr Tham Siew Nee are in the last. Hainanese speaking nurses assist in language translation. The crowd builds up rapidly, but we manage to see everyone by 12 noon.
Lunch is at a village restaurant just 5 minutes away. Village food is standard fare: the infamous Wen Chang chicken (tough birds!), vegetables dripping in oil, fish steamed in oil/soy marinade, pig innards fried with vegetables... food arrives endlessly until plates are piled upon each other… the amount of wasted food is phenomenal.
The afternoon clinic starts again just before 2 PM and we work hard seeing everybody. After awhile, the complaints are pretty similar, with the top 6 being:
1. Osteoathritis ( ie back/leg/neck pain)
2. Soft tissue rheumatism ( ie thigh/calf/ hand pain)
3. some rashes ( mostly ezcema, some scabetic rashes )
4. eye complaints (dry eye, cataracts )
5. lumps/bumps: lipoma/osteoma/ganglions
6. PV discharge ( most likely thrush but we were unable to perform speculum exams )
After consultation, the patients proceed to the pharmacy to fill out the prescription.
The pharmacy is run by the medical students. Without doubt the top item had to be the ketotop plasters!
Pa ran the minor OT and was kept busy with the multiple lipomas and ganglions. Dr Tham and I ended the day by operating on a skin tag, naevus (nose) and a lipoma (forehead).
The bus takes us back to the Hotel for dinner, which is hosted by the Mayor of the town, and is a lavish multiple course dinner, including seafood, pork ribs and local delicacies. Our Minister, Mr Mah Bow Tan is a guest of Honour, and actually goes round the various tables toasting us all! And what would an official dinner be without the mandatory photo taking..!!
Day 3:
It was a bad night again, with my dear hubby suffering from gastro at 4 am again!
Breakfast is standard fare. Bleary eyed, we eat, then set off to the various locations…
At Wenchang village clinic, we arrive to a massive queue that had been building up since 5 AM!
But with the grace and hard work of all the volunteers, we actually manage to see everybody and break for lunch at 12noon! Lunch was at the SAME restaurant serving the SAME food as yesterday. But it probably is the BEST restaurant in town and had a half decent squat toilet.
Unfortunately, we had run out of medicines, so the afternoon clinic had to be severely shortened. The run ended with a handout of multivitamins and the local favourite: Ketotop plasters! It became rather chaotic when the handouts started, so that had to be halted within 5minutes!
Finally, with everything packed up, we bid our goodbyes to the villagers for the year, and took the bus back to the hotel. Some volunteers decide to visit the school for the Deaf, but Ma, Chai and I decided to go check out the local spa… Bali Dao Massage parlour, a 4 storey building dedicated to the art of massage, spas and hair care! We all got the foot massage, which included a back/arm and leg massage as well. Chai and Ma had ginger/herb mix added to their foot water, while I had some milk ?sago to mine.
Unfortuntely the preggy me ended up with a a half baked massage, the masseur “panicked” on finding out that I was 6months gone! At least my 2 other companions got a thorough squeeze. The 3 of us were in the same room aptly named “Malaysia” with a TV set that was stuck at 1 channel. Chai’s masseur was really chatty! Talking non stop throughout the entire hour long session!
Dinner was at Feng Yuan restaurant in the city centre, we were reunited with the rest of the group. There was an explosion of meat related dishes and as usual food was piled sky high on the dining table… the mandatory Wenchang chicken, ‘jia fu’mixed veg, pork ribs, steamed prawns, multiple vegetable dishes which we couldn't really identify!
It was topped off with Karaoke, the local city councillor enthusiastically taking the stage and screaming into the microphone! I think no one else really appreciated it and we all cleared out within the next 15minutes!
The nights are pretty boring, after wandering around the neighbouring street stalls we headed back to the hotel. We took the local transportation “tuk tuk” style, costing only 3 RMB per vehicle. The hotel was pretty hopeless too, smokers everywhere in the café downstairs, so we were directed to the 5th floor tea place where we had drinks in a private room …
Day 4:
Morning call occurred without fail at 0630 h AGAIN! Everyone was down for brekkie by 0730 H. Then the chaos started again as everyone was off to different places… we manage to get a car to take us down to Sanya ..so we finally leave Wenchang at 0930h.
The car ride down was quite an adventure! Of course safety is not really a top priority for this guy, over taking whenever he liked, not wearing seat belts etc… then he had to tak
e us to 2 commercial places to ‘visit’ and buy stuff.. the first place sold deer products, and had cruelly locked up deer to show off to tourists.. the second place had coffee and other products… we buy some coffee related stuff…When we finally arrive at Sanya, the driver then takes us to a seafood place …Where we probably got ripped off… When we get to the Sanya Marriott it was nearly 3 PM!
The Marriott came as a relief… after checking in we troop down to the pool and GET WET! The water was freezing cold though… but the Marriott has a fantastic pool, with a water massage feature, floating banana boat, water volleyball net and basketball net.
Dinner was at the Marriott café, where we scored first rate seats to watch a private event occurring on the front lawn. There was live music and singing as they introduced the Ford S-Max car. To get an even better view, we then adjorned to the View Lounge on the 3rd Floor lobby for drinks and dessert. The event ended with a spectacular firework display.
Day 5:
Our first really good sleep in the past few days! Chris and I have a king sized bed in a pretty decent sized room that comes with a lovely toilet…
We all head down to check out the gym, which turns out to be pretty small … there are 3 Cybex treadmills, 2 bicycles, 1 stepper and 1 elliptical trainer. And a small selection of free as well as mounted weights…
Breakfast was a continental buffet at the cafe, the selection of food was pretty good with made to order eggs, pancakes and even smoothies! Service is smooth and efficient and I was impressed that a straw was sent to my table when I asked for one at the smoothie counter.
After a scrumptious fill we all head down to the clubhouse. The sun was out so w
e took a dip in the deliciously cold water. The clubhouse had a selection of other activities : table tennis, Foosball, snooker and a putting green, but everything was chargeable! So.. sunblock on, into the water …We spent the entire morning in the water, enjoying the multiple Jacuzzi like massages, moving on to water basketball and even water volleyball… unfortunately Ma sustained a mild sprain of her thumb from an attempted pass at the ball…
Happy Hour at the beach side cafe starts at 5Pm daily with a live 4man band playing by the side…we certainly made good use of the hour! One for one drinks till 6Pm..
After tea of fish and chips, burger and satay we headed over to the club house wh
ere Chai showed his forte at Foosball… he single handedly beat Chris and I at ALL games by scores of 10 to1, 8 to 2 etc…! We then moved onto the snooker arena and played for another hour or so… Pa and Ma later joined us and started a game of table tennis.Exhausted, we ended the day with dinner at Indochine, the hotel Vietnamese restaurant. Crisp tangy mango seafood salad, rich chicken curry, grilled succulent pork ribs, roasted honey duck breast and a steaming bowl of pho filled us up nicely… we were
the only guests at the restaurant so service was truly personalised and efficient. For dessert we adjourned to the View Lounge where the band and female soloist was performing again. Of course we had to have the delectably moist and dense chocolate mud cake served with handmade vanilla ice cream as well as a slice of their signature apple pie. The night wind was quite cool, and together with the sound of the female vocalist made for a splendid way to end our trip…THE LAST DAY: trip back to Singapore
We were sad to leave the confines of the Marriott Sanya resort and spa, but truly refreshed and ready to go home to reality.. and work..
After breakfast at the cafe, we checked out and boarded the hotel limousine to em
bark on the 3 hour journey to Haikou International Airport for the Tiger Airway flight home. What a tremendous change from the journey to the Marriott! The transport was fully air conditioned, seat belts for everyone and a bottle of water to start the journey! Just a pity it lacked a small LCD screen to view movies from!We get to the airport in good time, and find that we could only check in an hour later! Really strange arrangement... off we go to get lunch at Ajisen Ramen : noodles, fried rice, beef rolled with enoki mushrooms and some cha siew.. When we finally get to check in there is a massive crowd waiting to do the same! Pa is pretty light footed and manage to move fast and secure us seats on board pretty quickly!
After a 31/2 hour ride on flight TR 937 we finally arrive back at 2030h... Geok comes and picks us up and we pop over to Auntie Kim's in Joo chiat for the famous XO fried Hokkien noodles..yum... thick yellow noodles swimming in generous portions of seafood and a rich savoury sauce... then its home for Zzzzzzz.... EXHAUSTED...
That was the 6 day trip in its essence... i had great fun and met plenty of interesting people on the trip.. my only regret is not being able to have a really nice spa treat at the Marriott! (mainly because of the pregnancy-- makes it a waste to have half strength massage !)
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