The internet (bollox alert) says that the bus to Vietnam leads from the International Tourist Centre located near the railway station. So I trudged there in the stifling heat, only to be told that it actually leaves from the Landong Coach Station, and we needed to get the metro for three stations. The very helpful young man at the Tourist Centre took us to the metro station and showed us how to use the rather complicated ticket machine. Because Nanning isn’t a tourist centre, nowhere recognises Western credit cards and we had to use cash to pay for stuff. The bus was comfortable and the scenery, once we were away from Nanning and its 9.94 million people, was dramatic with Guilin-style conical hills all the way to the Vietnam border. There were a lot of maize fields as well as paddy fields in the valley bottoms and small fields with different kinds of vegetables. The trees in the forests of bamboo trees were all the same height, suggesting that they were being grown commercially. There were also fields of small bushes in neat rows which I think were growing coffee. The Vietnam border was complicated; we got out of the bus and were handed a card which we hung round our necks. We then took a little electric car and followed the crowd out of the Chinese passport control and customs with no problem and then into Vietnam with no trouble. We do not need a visa for Vietnam. We had to wait for some time before we were shepherded onto a Vietnamese bus to take us to Hanoi. While the rural scenery was no different to China, the houses were very different, with buildings which were very thin, very tall and very long (which may have housed several families) as well as rather ornate three-storey houses. The bus eventually stopped and, thinking we were in Hanoi (called Ha Noi in Vietnam) we got off only to be stopped by the driver who gesticulated in a way we didn’t understand. A young man then told us in passably good English that this wasn’t Hanoi, but Long Bien, 60 kms to the north east. We got back onto the bus and, when we reached Hanoi, the same young man (a Chinese from Guangdong Province on business in Hanoi) offered to locate a hotel for us if we would like to have a meal with himself and his girlfriend. He took us to a noodle house where we had a splendid pork noodle soup. He then ordered a taxi to his friend’s house and dropped us off on the way at the Wyndham Garden Hotel where we got the last room. It is located in the south-western suburb of Van Phuc (no sniggering at the back please) and our room is on the 16th storey with dramatic views of housing, tower blocks and motorways.
The China Gate leading from Vietnam into China through the Lam Son Pass. This is where Chinese weapons came into Vietnam during the war against the Americans.
This line, at Nanning railway station, said “Please wait outside the noodle” when I took the picture and got mysteriously changed on the phone. Chinese words have up to four meanings, differentiated by intonation, and perhaps “line” and “noodle” are translations of the same Chinese word.
Vietnamese soldiers rehearsing for a film