Hanoi

One of the irritations I come across in these 'former Communist countries' is that nothing ever seems to work properly and/or well. This includes the USB port on this computer (again) and therefore I cannot put any photos up. However, I can give you a description of the last day or so.

I left yangshou for Guilin on a bus and then got the train to Nanning. Whilst waiting for my train in Guilin station forecourt I was first approached by a begger who tried to impress me by goose-stepping around, doing a cart-wheel and then singing. Not sure what he wanted, but he didnt get it. Then two Chinese girls came to chat to me, which was nice. After the usual chat; where are you from, going, been, liked? I made my way to the train which to my utter glee was a double-decker!!!! All my life I have dreamed of going on a double decker train and on this day my dream came true. I had my own little seat at the top on the stairs on the top deck; delightful.

Arriving in Nanning at 9pm I set off to find a hotel. On my way a group of 7 or 8 chinese youths spotted me and came over to say hello and ask where i was from. I gave them the details and then told them i was looking for my hotel. They looked at my map and then proclaimed "we'll follow you!" thus aquiring me my first posse of chinese disciples. In fact the whole moment was very monty python, just like King athur aquiring knights to search for the Holy grail. After a short walk, and with my disciples telling me the hotel didnt exsist, they went their seperate way and I decided to check into a different, mid-range hotel - mid range being a single bedroom, with en-suite shower costing 7 pounds.

The day after I went to the station and booked my train to Hanoi before going for a walk around town. Not a lot to do in Nanning but at about 2.30pm I aquired my second set of disciples! Three 15 year olds who again, after asking the who? where? what? questions decided that "we'll follow you". We then spent the rest of the day going to the river, and then the park, with my acting as their english teacher and they teaching me a bit of chinese.

I left them at 7 ish to go and get my train which left at 9. I feel asleep on the train but at 2am we were awoken by the Vietnamese border gaurds who took our passports and then discussed amongst themselves what nationality I was. However, instead of the usual "any guns? any drugs?" and then move on; as they do in Eastern Europe, the gaurds decided it was time to don some plastic glooves and have a good search of my bag, which was nerve-wracking to say the least. It was the perfect moment to have the thought 'what if someone has planted a kilo of cocaine in my bag?'. Fortunatley, there was no Cocaine. There was however a copy of "quotations from the works of Mao Zedong", which I had purchased in Beijing. At the sight of this the gaurds appeared to chuckle and the search ended shortly afterwards.

An hour or so later, and a swap of train, and we were on our way again.

Next day, the views of the rice fields from the train were very nice on the way in, and Hanoi seems remarkably interesting compared to china's bland high rises and 8 lane carriagways. On arrival I got off and was swamped by motorcycle taxi men. A man offered to take me to my hotel for 15,000VND and so I accepted. Decribing a 'motor-cycle taxi' is quite simply, it a taxi made out of a motorcycle. My motorcycle taxi fortunatly came with a helmet for the passenger and so after putting this on we set off on what was an exciting jouney through narrow, congested streets with us travelling so close to other road (and pavement) users that at one point my umbrella, which was hanging from my shoulder back, was wacking into old women who were trying to cross the road. The driver naturally took me to the wrong hotel where i thought I was going to get the hard sell of: 'no, your want to come here instead'. However, after showing him the map we went on a second journey to the proper hotel, where i am now talking to you from.

bye bye for now.

NB. mum i sent you an email and james did you get the facebook message about house bills?

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