Haikou, China

Business centre, main port and first stop for newly arrived holidaymakers and hopeful migrants alike, HAIKOU has all the atmosphere of a typical Southeast Asian city. There's a smattering of French colonial architecture, a few parks and monuments, modern skyscrapers, broad streets choked with traffic and pedestrians, and the all-pervading spirit of wilfully glib commerce. An indication of the ethos driving Haikou is that nobody seems to be a local: officials, businessmen and tourists are all from the mainland, while Li, Miao and Hakka flock from southern Hainan to hawk trinkets, as do the Muslim Hui women selling betel nuts – all drawn by the opportunities that the city represents. More than anything, Haikou is a truly tropical city: humid, laid-back, pleasantly shabby, and complete with palm-lined streets, something particularly striking if you've just emerged from a miserable northern Chinese winter.

The old quarter, boxed in by Bo'ai Bei Lu, Datong Lu and pedestrianized Deshengsha Lu, is the best area to stroll through, with its grid of restored colonial architecture housing stores and businesses. Jiefang Lu and Xinhua Lu are the main streets here, especially lively in the evening when they're brightly lit and bursting with people out shopping, eating and socializing; there's also a busy market west off Xinhua. Otherwise, Haikou Park and the adjacent lake are small but quite pleasant, the former a venue for extensive early-morning martial-art sessions, and with shrubberies concealing cracked stone statues, reputedly from a vanished Ming-dynasty temple.