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After a few nice relaxing days in Shenzhen of watching movies and eating more yummy food, and checking out some of the local tourist areas (Happy Valley -.... the Unhappy Valley - not our favorite place! And Windows of the World - filled with miniatures of major places from around the world, eg. Taj Mahal), we departed China for Vietnam.
We finally made it after a long series of metro, train, car, walking, "bus", and taxi! We started off our journey in Shenzhen making our way by train to Guangzhou, from there we boarded a sleeper train for an overnight train to Nanning. At Nanning, a friend of Wonder's picked us up to drive us to the Pingxiang, China/Dong Dang, Vietnam border. After getting stamped out of China and into Vietnam we proceeded for a few km's on foot to the bus station. Not the easiest task with our big bags and the wicked hot weather but it was nice to go for a walk after the 15 hours on the trains and 3 hours in the car!
We had put up our guard a lot about Vietnam. Trust nobody! So when we went to the place where all
the buses were parked we had made up our minds to talk to no one and just head to the big nice coach buses that were parked by the vans. Well we couldn't figure out how to buy tickets and caved into talking to some people working in a store - right away we had it in our minds to not trust them either because they were probably getting some sort of commission from someone! Haha. In the end, we went with their suggestion and paid the 5 USD/each for the 3 hour "bus" (van) ride into Hanoi. It was a pretty interesting ride. After going through inspection at the border, everyone on board started taking things out of every place imaginable, bra's, pant legs, etc - all things they obviously weren't allowed to take across the border - probably brought in from China to sell on the streets in Vietnam. We made the most random stops along the way - the driver would honk the horn as a guy got out the side and grabbed a fan in a bag to place on the street and then drive away while a woman ran out of the house to collect
her fan.... Then random stops along the side of the road to let the women out one at a time with their new goods. They must have some sort of honk and run system. We just stayed on the bus until we were told to get off!
After grabbing a taxi to our guesthouse and having a much needed shower, we toured out to the Hoan Kiem lake in the Old Quarter. It's a nice gem in the middle of the Old Quarter (where we are staying), we came across a diner/cafe right on the lake and grabbed a spot on the balcony. We did some good relaxing before taking a nice stroll around the lake. Tons of people, tons of bikes, and tons of foreigners! Yea for blonde-haired white people! Hahahaha...
Tomorrow we are going to hit up the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and book our tickets out to Cat Ba Island!
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