I was in Sanya, Hainan, the most southern city in China and had planned to meet my young Chinese friend Star for lunch. I got to a beach that is frequented by Russian tourists about 3 hours early, I planned to walk the coast line in search of some photo's.
As I traversed over rocks by the sea the water began crashing higher against the bluff. Once I got to a point where I could not navigate further along the waters edge I wondered if I should turn around and find somewhere else to discover, and take photo's.
Going up often gives the best opportunity for scenery photo's so I give little thought and started to climb at the base of the cliff, just for a better view was my intention.
At about 30 metres (100 ft) I was finding the ascent more difficult but still manageable. I focused on a tree that was growing out of the rock, this tree would help me to surpass a tough climbing section. I pulled on this tree to test it's strength and was satisfied that it was strong enough to hold me. I jumped and pulled hand over hand to climb the tree which released 100's of large red bull ants that started biting me all over my body. Frantically I got back down to a ledge that was my jumping platform and stripped my clothes off; while trying to slap the ants as I was disrobing After assessing the damage- my scraped arms and legs- I found a crack which supported my thought to continue ascending the cliff. After some careful climbing I reached a clearing that afforded me good views for my photo's.
Once I gathered my legs I continued to climb; seemed like going back down the face of the cliff was not an option, it was not safe. Once I reached the top of this 100 metre cliff I found that it was a military mountain which was flat on top with a helicopter pad, some barracks, and other assorted buildings. At first a few of the 50 some odd soldiers approached with shocked looks on their faces, they were immediately very pleasant. A couple of the soldiers took me to a building and give me a glass of water (it was very hot)....they were so shy. I am not sure what they thought of this 50 year old foreigner who was cut up, dirty, and sweaty.
The atmosphere quickly changed when the head officer came in, he was very intense; not exactly the most polite guy I have met in a white uniform. Immediately he raised his voice to the sociable young soldiers and gestured that he wanted my phone and camera (of which he removed the batteries). To jump ahead...I sat in that one room building for 2 hours with one of the junior men who spoke very few words of English, he managed to articulate that I needed to stay there. Soon after that 5 high end vehicles pulled up that contained 14 top officials. I watched them out of the window and the head honcho was so serious looking. Another vehicle pulled up about 30 minutes later which contained 3 secret service agents, one who was a translator; that is how I knew they were agents. By this time I was getting impatient and the mid-20's translator kept saying "no problem sir", while I said "yes there is a problem", I want to leave here and walk down the road.
After 5 hours of the officers talking Chinese and the translator asking me questions, it was obvious that they THOUGHT I WAS A SPY. When I mentioned that my wife and daughter were traveling with me the translator asked, "what did you tell them?" They took me outside and asked me for seemingly the 20th time, "how did you get up this mountain?" I told the translator that rock climbing is popular in the west....they just could not believe I climbed the cliff. I tried to get through to them that a spy was not going to walk around the top of the mountain in front of them. One of the men got me to go over to a car and he put a blindfold on me so we could drive down the mountain using their access road, seemed as though they wanted to see from which point that I ascended the mountain. Some officers were beside me where I had walked earlier while others were just off the beach in the grass; laying down in the long grass some 10 metres from the sea was a sign printed in Chinese, Russian, and English which read, 'Chinese Military Installation--absolutely no entry beyond this point.'
It seemed apparent that while up on the mountain that the head officers thought the sign was standing, not laying down in the long grass. Surely THIS is why they kept screaming in Chinese while they looked at me. If that sign was standing I am sure they would have put me in jail. After 8 hours with me and an interrogation of my friend Star, they let me go, but not before closing off the floor of the hotel I was checked into and searching my backpack. I had sit in a room at the hotel while they drafted up a letter that they wanted me to sign. The 10 page document that was written in Chinese only supposedly said " I willingly entered China's most southern military installation." I was very angry by the end (as angry as one could realistically get with these guys). I demanded my camera card back since I had so many photo's of China; they agreed to put the photo's on a disk and they kept the card (so that I could not retrieve the deleted SECRET scenery photo's).
Poor Star never did get lunch, here she is helping make sure I do not lose many photo's by translating with the camera shop owner (and the military)When we walked out of the hotel to go to a camera shop there was a big crowd on the street....these guys blocked so much of the sidewalk with their vehicles, maybe people thought I was a murderer? When the translator went to get in his vehicle I said to him, " hey, I will meet you there tomorrow to put up the sign."
Two days later I checked my e-mail at an internet cafe and there was a message from my wife that said, "Daddy...be careful."
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