November 24, 2005
Friendship Pass: Nanning to Hanoi
(On Monday I made an uneventful 100 Yuan bus trip from Yangshuo back to Nanning. My visa for Vietnam was ready and a 138 Yuan bus ticket to Hanoi needed securing.)
Tuesday morning, bright and early at 0730, my bus departed for Hanoi. It was a very modern bus with large, business-class seats, unnecessary air-conditioning, an audio/visual system, and a friendly stewardess that spoke a few bits of English. Our route to Pingxiang, the last remaining Chinese town before the boarder, was a mixture of new highways and old country roads that took five hours to navigate. We stopped in Pingxiang to have our free lunch and pickup some more passengers, namely two western guys. One of them, Levine from Germany, was haggling with an illegal money changer for a good Yuan-to-Dong conversion rate. I settled quickly for 1800 Dong/Yuan although the inter-bank rate is ~1940. Levine did a bit better and ended with the moneychanger telling him that he was ‘a little bit Chinese’. It was a nice compliment.
Joining us on the bus with Levine was a 70-year old Dutch-Ozzie man who had been teaching English in China for a wee bit. He was a nice enough chap but I didn’t really speak much at first. Our bus trip to the border region was fairly short and bumpy. We soon ran into several kilometers of freight lorries heading south that were waiting on the side of the road with engines off and drivers asleep. Our bus driver soon gave up trying to plot a course down the tiny road and instructed us all to get off and walk the remaining distance to the boarder.
The Dutch gentleman quickly went ballistic. It turns out that he had two large, airport friendly (read ‘totally inappropriate for this kind of travel’) suitcases and a large plastic shopping bag full of stuff. I quickly put on my 17kg rucksack and left for the boarder…before he looked to me for any help. Near the end of the 2km walk he had nearly caught up with me—some nice fellow put his bags on a hand cart and pushed them to the door of the Chinese boarder complex.
The Chinese side of the Friendship Pass boarder is dotted with several buildings. I was too scared to take many pictures so entered the immigration and customs building quickly. After receiving an exit stamp I navigated my way through the construction-zone of a building with lots of helpful signs…in Chinese only. Thinking quickly, I just followed the Chinese guys who were on my bus. He he…it worked.
There is about a 200m walk downhill accross the official territorial boarder and the Vietnamese immigration building . It was a really strange experience walking in that no man’s land between countries that reminded me of those cold war thrillers where the spy walks across the bridge to the West German side in some sort of dodgy prisoner exchange.
The Vietnamese immigrations and customs hall was in great need of a process consultant. Nobody knew what was going on, required forms were hidden away at the end of the hall (not near the entrance where they were needed), etc. The Vietnamese immigration officer did not like my passport at all and inspected it for a good twenty minutes while he thumbed through the pages, compared the Hippy Stu picture with my present appearance, examined the two 20-page passport supplements, and scrutinized many pages/stamps with some sort of special light scanning device. In the end all was good and he let me enter Vietnam without the rubber glove treatment. I was the second person to reach our new bus that would take us all to Hanoi. Yippee.
Everyone made it through the boarder we hopped onto a new bus at about 1330. The Dutch-Austrailian man was in some sort of tizzy because the Chinese boarder official was confused with his visa and an evidently erroneously granted/issued visa extension. It took him a good twenty minutes to clear Chinese immigration and by that time Our Dear Dutchy was all worked up. Levine was being very understanding, patient and sympathetic to him. After hearing a few bitches like “Why do these people make it so complicated?� and “I just don’t understand!� I moved forward a few rows, cracked open an ice cold Tiger Beer (12,000 Vietnamese Dong), and started grooving to The English Beat on my iPod.
About two hours latter the batteries on my iPod expired so I started speaking to Levine and Dutch-boy again. Apparently, while in my own little world, driver explained to everyone that we were due into Hanoi around 1800 or so, which sent the Dutch man into his third tantrum of the day. He was expecting the bus to arrive in Hanoi at the scheduled 1500, which was enough time to take the one hour taxi to the airport where he was planning to catch a 1700 flight to Saigon and then an onward flight to Sydney, Australia. I was absolutely flabbergasted by his incredibly delicate itinerary. Even back in Switzerland or America or Europe it would be downright foolish to plan so tightly for a back-to-back Train-to-Bus-to-Taxi-to-Airplane-to-Airplane journey! But this bloody idiot thought he could travel through rural China, across the Chinese-Vietnamese boarder, and down into Vietnam like he had some sort of magical charm that would ensure success.
We stopped for a pottie break, I bought another bear, fell sound asleep for another hour…and completely tuned out from all the drama that the idiotic Dutch-boy was suffering. He was still raving about how ‘these people’ were thwarting his travel plans when I awoke.
At about 1700 we pull off the side of the road outside of Hanoi. It was rush hour. The bus driver waves down a taxi for the Dutch Ozzie for his hopeless passage to the airport. The rest of the passengers gather their luggage and leave. Levine and I are a bit stumped about what is going on but take it in stride and get back onto the bus. Twenty minutes later, this beautiful, young English-speaking Vietnamese lady boards the bus and tells us that a) the bus is not going into Hanoi during rush hour, b) it just happens that the bus is run by a company that owns a hotel in the old quarter, and c) she would love to take us to her hotel in a subsidized taxi. My ‘bull shit’ indicator started beeping very loudly at that moment and we started quizzing her about all the specifics…I was not happy. After agreeing to the 15,000 Dong taxi fare each (same as it would have been from the bus station into the Old Quarter) we hop into a small, new taxi and head into town. An hour later Levine and I had exchanged emails, Pam and I finally met up at the Tin Tin Hotel (270,000 Dong / night) and the two of us headed of for dinner at some nice Italian place.
By golly, Hanoi has changed since I was last here in the summer of 2000.
Posted by stu at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
Li River Excursion
My last full day in Guangxi Province started out at 1000 with a bus ride to Xingping with a fellow traveler, Alina from Scotland. The one hour, 5.5 Yuan bus ride was pretty uneventful except the scattering of cute children we saw along the way.
Once in Xingping we took a short, 2 Yuan ride down to the river boats in a three wheeled death machine with no suspension…vowing to walk back if we lived to make that decision. A bit of confusion and many attempts by vendors to sway us into purchasing some trinkets or foodstuffs, we boarded a 15m long shallow-hulled boat with a the tour guide, the boat captain, a nice French couple, a Spanish woman from the Canary Islands and a few Chinese tourists who did not speak English.
Soon we set off on our 50 Yuan, two hour cruise (“…a two hour cruise…�) up the Li River towards Guilin to view up close and personal the breathtaking limestone mountains. Within twenty minutes we pulled over for what seemed to be a “these are my friends and relatives selling food, buy something� break. Another twenty minutes later and we were still standing there wondering what was going on. That is when Alina interrogated our guide and learned that the boat was not licensed to transport foreigners—you see, a lookout for the boat captain had seen a police patrol boat coming down the river and we had to (literally) wait for a “the coast is clear� signal.
Once back on the river we got into the thick of some stunning scenery. Lucky for us, the day was clear and sunny. There are many fantastic photos in the photo gallery (or soon will be) if you care to have a peak. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Occasionally the boat captain would start pointing to specific mountains and described in Chinese what the individual mountains were named, a brief history, etc. Most of us just looked at the peaks in awe and somewhat confused.
The boat trip ends after two or so hours and we all head up for Xingping Highstreet on foot where the bus to Yangshuo awaits Alina and I. Since we didn’t dare take the death scooter again, and we didn’t pay enough attention to the route to and fro, we became predictably lost. All in good fun. Half an hour later we board the bus packed with domestic tourists and begin the slow journey back to Lisa’s Café…stopping frequently to pickup and drop off locals.
All bitching aside, the trip was amazing…I have these images of the jagged, unique limestone peaks etched in my brain…probably forever.
Posted by stu at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
Photography: The Freaky Westerners
At several times during the trip to Yangshuo, in Guangxi Province, myself or the group I was traveling with became the object of fascination with the domestic Chinese tourists. As mentioned in the previous post, my personal Chinese fan club had their photos taken with me. But the next evening while dining with some fellow travelers on ‘West Street’, many domestic Chinese holiday-makers found us interesting enough to attempt snapping pictures of us covertly. After a few beers, we decided to start taking pictures back. :D Some of them found this humorous and laughed, while some were embarrassed and quickly scurried away.
Posted by stu at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2005
Chinese Dreams
The train ride from Hong Kong’s Hung Hom rail station to Guangzhou East train station was uneventful, expect for the nice British educated Korean banker beside me who was full of friendly conversation. Once officially stepping into China there was about four hours or so to make it to the new Baiyun airport outside of town. I let myself get semi-swindled into a 200 Yuan taxi ride in a late model air-conditioned minivan with the friendly talkitive taxi tout.
My China Southern Airlines flight CX 3331 was pleasantly uneventful. (Some Chinese airlines, specifically China Southern Airlines, have absolutely terrible safety records...surely one of the most dangerous flights of my life.) Upon landing in Nanning I grabbed a one hour, 10 Yuan bus ride into the provincial capital and grabbed a room at the Yinhe Dajiudian hotel opposite the train station. 88 Yuan per night for two nights, what a deal.
First thing Thursday morning I was up and heading for the China International Travel Service office (CITS) to arrange for my Vietnam visa (450 Yuan.) For some silly idea I thought this could be arranged in one day...maybe two tops. They informed me that it would be three days. After spending a few more hours in Nanning it became painfully clear that a side sojourn was in order. Nanning is no tourist mecca. At Gene’s earlier recommendation I was headed for Yangshuo via Gaulin.
Three busses and 130 Yuan later I arrived at Lisa’s Café guesthouse, an ‘institution’ as per the Lonely Planet guide book.
Lisa is a very friendly lady with a quirky sense of humor. While checking in she asked me to please not to steal away her beautiful waitresses to America. “I’ll try...but no promises.� The staff is generally really nice. Lisa even has an Ethernet cable to hook up my laptop to her ADSL line, which is a convenience totally not expected from an inexpensive guesthouse in rural China.
The next day while uploading pictures and writing this blog entry, ‘Apple’ came at sat with me for a while. We worked on her English by discussing my trip through China, my charity work with Child’s Dream and Animal Care Payam, religion (Christianity) and Daoism. Heavy stuff, really. Lisa asked me also to write Lonely Planet an email pointing out all the inaccuracies in the Yongshuo section of their China edition. Yes, ma’am!
Today I went for a walkabout through town. The nearness of the steep-but-small mountains is really striking. Check out the picture gallery if you have a moment.
After wandering about town I went down to the Li River where a group (extended family?) of Chinese people took an interest in me for some odd reason. While photographing the river and mountains it became clear that many people were gawking at me—-one was unashamedly taking my photograph. I smiled into the camera. Next a young boy walked up and said ‘Hello’ and indicated that he wanted his photograph take with me. Two dozen photos later and the entire group had their pictures taken with ‘that savagely handsome western man’. (My Mandarin is a little rusty, so they could have been saying ‘that geeky, unshaven freak with small elbows’.)
Posted by stu at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)