Banks and exchange Your accommodation may be able to help with money-changing, otherwise there are branches of the Bank of China opposite the Overseas Chinese Hotel, and in the same building as the International Financial Hotel, both on Datong Lu. Banking hours are approximately Mon-Fri 8am-6pm.

Cinema There's a popular screen and entertainment complex on Jiefang Lu, and an open-air effort with concrete benches and palm trees in Haikou Park on the Daying Houlu side.

Hospital Hainan Provincial People's Hospital, Longhua Lu (tel 6225933). In addition, reflexology and massage practitioners set up in the afternoons at the bottom end of Datong Lu, across from the Overseas Chinese Hotel.

Internet Get connected (¥10 an hour) upstairs at the Internet Bar, 100m past the Post and Telecommunications Hotel on Nanbao Lu. PSB The Foreign Affairs Department is on Changti Dadao, just west of the junction with Longhua Lu.

Post and telecommunications The most central post office, parcel post service and IDD phones are near the park on Datong Lu (daily 8am-6pm).

Shopping Pearls are a good thing to buy while on Hainan, but Sanya is a much better place to find a bargain. Hotel gift shops can sell you strings of them, as well as coconut shells carved with faces, coral branches stained fluorescent colours and mounted in glass cases, and seashells, some carved with cameos. Whole shark skins - like sandpaper - dried jellyfish and other maritime curiosities in the shops along Jiefang Lu are also worth a look.

Telephone The telephone code for Haikou is 0898.