WENCHANG , a decent-sized county town 70km southeast of Haikou, is known to the Chinese as the birthplace of the sisters Song Qingling and Song Meiling , respective wives to Sun Yatsen and Chiang Kaishek. Built up as a commercial centre last century by the French, it has now rather gone to seed. The main bus station is on the northern outskirts. From here walk downhill into town along Wenxin Lu and you'll quickly pass the reasonably priced Yunshan Binguan (¥75-100) and Xiange Binguan (¥75-100) on the left, before coming to an acute kink in the road over a canal with well-constructed stone embankments. Cross over and turn left, and some 500m straight ahead is the new town and a far more modern bridge, where you can catch minibuses out to the coastal village of Qinglan (20min). Take the ferry here across a small inlet, and it's another brief ride to Dongjiao Yelin , Hainan's first coconut plantation . Acres of beachfront have been planted with trees, making a nice backdrop, and, though the area is becoming developed in a haphazard way, with a handful of hotels under construction, it's a nice place to laze for a few hours.