Still leaving China

We arrived in Nanning after a rather nerve-racking bus journey, during which Joanne was constantly re-calculating when we were likely to be arriving in Nanning, and whether this would give us enough time to get across town to the other bus station (oops) to catch the last bus to Hanoi (oops). The journey to Nanning took longer than I had realised and I hadn't done enough research to realise that there were two bus stations.

I was quite relaxed. I knew that there were PLENTY of buses from the same bus station as we arrive at to Pingxiang. Ok, they didn't go all the way to Hanoi, but Pingxiang is right on the border, so we could get a taxi for a couple of dollars to take us to the border, and then we'd be in Vietnam and eveything would be ok. So when we arrived at Nanning bus station after the bus to Hanoi had left (so definitey not enough time to get across town to catch it), I confidently walked up to the ticket office and said "Pingxiang", easily securing us a ticket for a bus which left in less than an hour. Nae bother! But then Joanne started with the calculations again ("the border closes at 7pm"), a little worried about being stuck in a border town with nothing to recommend it apparently; we could find no information in the guide books or online, and even accommodation seemed to be absent from the available information. On the bus, though, we realised that it would all be ok because Vietnam time is one our behind Beijing time, which we were on. So the border "really" closes at 8pm if you're heading south. Only this bus too longer than we expected too.

When we got off the bus we COULD have got a taxi to the border in time, but we had no dong (Vietnamese currency of course) and no way of getting it as you can only get it in the country. In the end we decided we should cut our losses and stay in this nasty wee border town, in case we got into penniless difficulty on the other side. At least our money worked here. After wandering round for a bit we realised that there were NO roman characters in this town at all; a level of difficulty we had not yet been completely exposed to.

Room in Pingxiang (for 60 yuan a night)

So no street name we could decipher, no shop names (is it a hotel? - no they wouldn't have that butchered dog hanging in the window, would they? Or would they?), and certainly no spoken English from anyone we could find. Eventually we passed what looked like it might be a cheap-we-hoped hotel and walked in. Again no English at all. So I took a breath and tried "double room" in Cantonese. Amazingly she understood, whereas previously nobody has understood a single syllable I've uttered in Cantonese. And as if that was not enough reward in itself, the hyroglyphs she pointed to on the wall said "60" next to it, which was far far cheaper than any room we had previously. Obviously it was going to be awful, so we demanded to see it. Ok, I pointed at my eyes and then pointed up the stairs, but it did the trick. In fact the room was our biggest so far, for the least money. It even had a balcony! It was a little bit shabby, but the rule seemed to be holding that the further you are from Hong Kong the less you pay.

Old folks dancing in the square

We wandered out onto the streets, quite cautious, but were met by the noise of a public address system blaring out music over the town square, and the delightful sight of all the old folks (and a few younger ones too) waltzing, or approximating some kind of ballroom dancing. Apparently Joanne had read something about this place: this is how the people of the town take their exercise. The atmosphere was quite festive, the tail end of the New Year apparently giving the place a bit of a buzz. The huge explosions from the fireworks continued (thank goodness we had earplugs for later). Everywhere we went, though, people laughed at us and pointed. Clearly this was not a popular tourist destination. At least not for longer than it takes to catch a taxi to Vietnam. We rounded our evening off with some excellent street food at about 90p for the two of us, and went back to the hotel congratulating ourselves on having chosen the best, cheapest, and fastest option. We would get the early bus to Hanoi the next morning, as we had already bought tickets when we arrived.

Still leaving China

Pingxiang, China