Nanning - or not
If you're an avid viewer of our itinerary (and therefore extremely bored) you may have noticed that we are supposed to be in Nanning (south China). Actually we are in Vietnam, so I thought I'd put a quick post about how we got here.Leaving Hong Kong involved another long-winded bus ride with numerous border stops, but at least we were prepared for it this time. It all worked out pretty well and then we managed to relocate the bus station in Guangzhou and book a sleeper bus to Nanning the same day. The bus was awesome, bunks layed out along the walls and another row set in the middle, and we all got given free water and 'congee' (I have no idea what this is, it came in a tin and looked extremely suspicious, and I later noticed was also past it's sell-by date. I guess it's the thought that counts!). They showed a movie in Chinese for the first couple of hours, it was set entirely in a shopping mall and at one point a woman gave birth under a load of umbrellas. I found this slightly confusing, so I gave it a miss and went to sleep pretty much straight away. Chris had a few problems as he was far too long for the bed, so I'm not sure he enjoyed it as much as me!
We were tipped out of the bus unceremoniously at 6am the following day (Friday), and after a quick tour of the surroundings discovered we were at a bus station in the middle of nowhere. So we got a taxi to the train station in the centre of Nanning. En route we decided that actually the city looked a little dull, like a bland version of the other cities we'd visited, so we decided to be brave and spontaneous and see if we could get a train out that day. So two hours later we left! Hard seater trains are not really designed to fit any human being, but luckily it was only a four hour trip to the station near the border. We got talking to an Irish couple who had been on our bus and were able to share taxis the rest of the way.
The border crossing, called the 'Friendship Gate' (see below), is a very strange set up. From the station we bargained a 'taxi' (read: dodgy minibus) driver to take us to the border, basically up a dirt track in the middle of nowhere. We had thought we'd be able to change our Chinese money there, which it turned out we could - but only if we were prepared to haggle with one of the men standing about by the gate for an exchange rate! During our expert bargaining we were joined by an Australian couple, who have also become travelling buddies. We had to walk through several checkpoints to this massive communist-style building which was basically empty except for two passport control teenagers. More dirt tracks through more checkpoints (four in total) and we finally left the last Vietnamise passport control (having been forced to pay for a 'medical check' certificate) to be greeted by hundreds more taxi drivers. Eventually the six of us got a taxi, followed by a minibus, to Hanoi where we are now.
So our first proper land-based border crossing has been managed and we are feeling like pro-travellers. We have already discovered alot in Hanoi, including that Australians and Irish people make fairly crazy drinking buddies - more on that in the next installment!
Emily
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