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Published: March 6th 2010
From Hong Kong to Hanoi. . . just about!
So we left our damp hostel early in the morning on ... i have no idea what day it is. . .ok some nice girl told me its saturday. Its 7 in the morning here. . and got the subway to the station that takes you through to main land china. We had to go through passport control etc but that was all fine and got on a train for about 2hours to Guantau ( wrong spelling) and this was where the fun began.
We got out of the station and got in a taxi to the main station. . . oh. my.days. I have neber seen so many people in one place. THOUSANDS of people. and the smell was awful. but oddly comforting. It smelt like Reading Festival. We struggled to find out where to get our tickets as there was NO english signs and barely english speakers. Eventualy we found the ticket booths but that apparently was goin to be the easy bit. When we asked for a ticket to Nanning ( another stop in china before veitnam) he just laughed. . he even got his friend to laugh at us.. eventually we had a understanding and we got our tickets. Now it was time for food.
The station was dirty. people sleeping here there and everywhere with rubbish all over the place, which was wierd as in HK it was so so clean ( 15,000 HK $ fine if litter was dropped) so we went for 'safety' in KFC.
SOme nice korean man let us sit at his table and we munched away and chilled for a bit. There was some palava in the loos but we had no idea as we understood nothing haha..but then we were approached by a homeless hunchback who was very intrigued by my quiz book ( the sudoku i was struggling to complete to be excact) so i just gave it to him and he left. We were going to make a break for it untill he stopped at the door and it looked like he was wating for us.. we hid behind a pillar and then ran through thte crowds into the station where we knew he wouldnt be able to get to us. This is where we found refuge with 2 english girls who were gettin on the same train as us! THANK GOD!! haha.
We got on the sleeper train which was hilarious as i have never seen this before!! it was 3 bunkbeds high and not brilliant for chlostrphobia suffers haha. but nevertheless we had many jokes with getting up there etc as it was clearly suited better for the petite chinese people. still. it was banter.
We then arrived in Nanning. No tourists what so everrrr. luckliy the 2 girls had met this american whilst at the previous station who taught english in this city. He kindly lead us to the McDonalds for breakfast and showed us round this park where people were fan dancing and singing for us. It was amazing. They stared a lot ( no suprises there) but were just interested and wanted say hello.
We walked back to the station, walking past stalls selling tiger feet! and other odd animal parts which i didnt dare ask about, and went to get our tickets for Hanoi. The american guy, Ethan, helped us to do this as he spoke the lingo! VERY VERY VERY USEFUL. particualry because it is spelt Henei in china..
Our train wasnt for another 8 hours and ethan invited us back to his pad to shower and get us something to eat. Now dont go thinking we were just getting into strangers cars. He had looked after our bags on the train. bought us food. He was clearly gay and just wanted english company. Promise. I trust noone . .but he was genuine.
He made us coffee. Much needed after a 12 hour sleeper train journey with minimal sleep. and then took us around to this litlle restaurant with authentic food ( i had cabbage and rice just to be safe!)( which he paid for!!) and then through this little market where i bought some sugar cane.... never again but at least i tried it!.
We got a mental taxi back to the train st. and waited for a while whilst we could board our next sleeper train!. This is where we met this japanese traveller who was heading for hanoi too!
We boarded the train and the banter began. 4 girls and japanese. the giggles and jokes were in abundance specially as there were no seats and not enough room to put my bag, and i was stuck on the top bunk with my bag and my knees in my neck. Hilarious!
We were stopped at 10pm at the chinese boarder to make sure we had the correct visas and passports etc which is where our 2 friends came into trouble. Their visa type was only for arrival via plane. . and as you clearly know. we were on a train. They were taken off the train and told to go back to nanning and get a visa and then fly...
Me and mads boarded the train again and were then stopped at midnight at the vietnam boarder to have passport checks again. At this point we were the only enlgish people there adn had run into a chinese lad who was travelling aswell, We werer to stick together.
We boarded the train and went to sleep. . kind of. You are half a meter from the bunk opposite and snoring was all there was to be heard.
At 4.45 this morning we arrived and as soon as we got off the train the hot hanoi morning hit us. There were the usual taxi louts waitin for us but we had help from our multilingula friends to get a cheaper taxi from the bus terminal a short walk away and arrived at Hanoi back packers hostel. Goole it. its awesome.
It has a bar. breakfast included. free dinner on the roof tomorrow. and loaaaaaaaads of english/ english speaking people here. ! Its 8 o clock now and i am going for a short kip before exploring this magical place.
And i am definatly getting one of these cool triangle hat things!!
We are hopefull meeting our visa-less friends here either tonight or tomorrow. . fingers crossed for them!
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa :D x.x.x.x
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Simon
non-member comment
Great to see you are still alive
Hey Ogz gave me the address for this site so just reading your travel blog. Glad to see you are still alive and surviving :) Hope you are havinga great time. Simon