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Published: April 18th 2012
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We left Hanoi bound for China on a sleeper train. The sleeper part was a bit inconspicuous cos we had to get off twice to do border crossings so the stopping and starting definitely interrupted any shut eye we needed!
We arrived in Nanning and immediately noticed how busy the train station was, crowds of people everywhere. Nanning is a provincial city and the guide books really didn’t recommend stopping her but using it as a transfer stopover before moving on. I would have to disagree slightly because while we were here we met the friendliest people, saw some interesting local customs/routines, had some interesting food and also found that China was to be somewhere we really want to revisit!
After arriving we walked to our hostel, it was only 10mins away so handy enough. The roads were wide and busy with (organised) traffic but there were pedestrian underpasses everywhere so it was awkward at times trying to find our way to the other side of the street! We arrived safe and had to wait for our room to be ready. Ended up meeting two Irish girls who also were waiting, they had just come from Guangzhou (where we
are heading next) so they gave us some tips and we shared traveling stories.
We checked in and decided that we wanted to sort out our train tickets to get to Guangzhou so the hostel kindly wrote out in Chinese what we needed. The level of English understanding here is basically non-existent. We walked back to the station and as soon as we arrived I decided to remember that we needed our passports to book… Oops! We decided to go for lunch first as we hadn’t eaten. In we went to a little place. No English to be seen anywhere, photos that were hard to decipher at times but luckily one waitress came to us with broken but understandable English and pointed to duck and chicken. That’s what we ordered. Unfortunately, the duck was not nice at all, John came to the rescue and had that and I had a yummy chicken dish!
We eventually managed to book the tickets. On the way back to the hostel we stopped in at a local public area which we had noticed earlier. There were hundreds of locals sitting or standing around watching or playing games. There were card games, Mah
Jong, dice games. It was really interesting to watch, some people seemed to be gambling others not. Some of the tables had throngs of people gathered around them while two opponents played a game. At one table with a dice game, the locals were really trying to get us play! We were pretty wrecked after the lack of sleep on the train so we had a chilled evening in the hostel with beers and DVDs!
The next day we went exploring the city a bit more. We headed for a local people’s park. In all cities across China these parks are to be found as a recreational area. This park had a large carp filled lake and you could feed the fish or go on pedalos. The carp really went crazy for the food, jumping up out on top of each other. We continued walking around people watching, looking at what was on offer – roller-skate/blade indoor arena, aquarium, historical monuments, outdoor gyms (these are everywhere, metal exercise machines, if you like, we had a wee go!). The thing that was a big difference here for us was the amount of attention we were getting. Whether it was when
we were walking down the street and you heard a big Hello from the other side of the street or the constant staring (blatant) or the sneaky photo taking!. The funniest was when a young teenage girl approached me in the park asking to take my photo. Next thing I know I agree, she has her arms around me, photo is being snapped and her friends are in fits of laughter!! We also had a man on a motorbike slow down beside us and stare while moving VERY slowly next to us. We definitely were the two of very few visitors in the city.
We were heading off on the train the next morning but did a quick run to the local shop to pick up some supplies. Well the shop is more than your normal but like a wholesaler. The food was ridiculously cheap and there were definitely some interesting choices there from chicken feet to dry pork slices, to fish still in the tanks, to homemade bread and so on. The locals seemed to buy lots of chicken feet, garlic, veg and eggs. Actually the queue for eggs was very very long! All stocked up for the
train journey, next stop Guangzhou!!!
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