Last stop in China

We arrived at a bus station in the city of Nanning in the early afternoon of Monday December 5th.  We were none too sure where we were, but knew that we needed to get to somewhere near the train station.  Some helpful locals got us on the right local bus (always a joy with suitcases in tow) and half an hour later we were in the city centre.  We found our hotel of choice with little difficulty, almost opposite the train station, checked in (a little swish for us, but we soon got used to that!) and sauntered over to buy train tickets for the next morning.  Spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering the main drag, checking out a large department store, doing some internetting and having our last dinner in China.  We chose Dicos, a fast food chain with which we'd had some success before - somehow more authentic than Macca's!  And less hassle than (a) avoiding dog meat on the street stalls or (b) trying to order from a Chinese menu.

Up early next morning, on the train and away we went.  A few other backpackers were also on the train, none of us knowing quite what the drill was for crossing the border into Vietnam.  Four hours later we arrived in the town of Pingxiang, were ushered into a waiting motor-cycle powered taxi (room for 2 and their bags in the back!).  From the book it appeared to be only a short hop to the border but was about 12 km or more.  Before reaching the border, on a deserted stretch of highway, the driver stopped and started saying something about money.  After a slight worry we realised that he wanted to exchange our Chinese money into Vietnamese, and we were able to get the rate we'd been told by a friendly local we should aim for.

The ride ended with us being unceremoniously dumped where the highway ended - it's still under construction.  There was a 500 m walk through the roadworks to the Chinese exit point - a fair bit of form-filling and we were through.  Another 500m through no-man's-land to the Vietnamese post.  Hmm, no such thing as a queue here - just put the passports in a pile with all the rest and wait till the man got to them!  It took a while, but we seemed to meet all the requirements (We were very impressed to have our heads infrared scanned to take our temperature and we are very pleased to report that it appears we are not suffering bird flu yet!) and eventually made it out into the waiting arms of a taxi driver.    Keith was absolutely stoked to finally be in Vietnam having passed up the opportunity for a free trip in the 70s!