Xinglong is a small town on Hainan's eastern coast, known across China for its natural hot springs and tropical produce. The mineral-rich spring water is piped directly into hotel rooms at a regulated temperature — a genuinely distinctive amenity — making Xinglong a popular destination for Chinese tourists seeking a warm soak without the large-resort atmosphere of Sanya. Rubber and coffee are the main cash crops here; the local Xinglong coffee has a devoted following and offers a curious counterpoint in the world's largest tea-drinking country.
What makes Xinglong more interesting than its modest size suggests is its population. Between the 1950s and 1970s, thousands of ethnic Chinese were expelled from Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia and resettled here on state-run farms. Their descendants have kept alive a Southeast Asian food culture, musical tradition, and agricultural knowledge that makes Xinglong unlike anywhere else in China. You can taste it in the restaurants, smell it in the markets, and explore it at the Indonesian Cultural Village.
The Xinglong Tropical Botanical Garden, established in 1957, is one of China's oldest, with over 1,200 tropical species including coffee, cacao, vanilla, and rubber cultivated in a proper research garden setting. It is an easy half-day visit and the coffee sold at the garden shop — from trees on the same site since the 1950s — is worth drinking slowly.