Goodbye Hanoi Hello Nanning, China

12/07

Oh well the last day of our Vietnamese visa so we catch a bus to Nanning, China.

The scenery along the way is great.  We seem to be travelling uphill almost all the way from Hanoi.  Nanning must be quite high above sea level.

The border crossing was pretty painless!  Only problem we had was a pretty steep hill we had to drag the big case up, but we managed.

We now climb on a Chinese bus, hmmm, very comfortable.  Again their roads are very good.  South Africa really needs to pay attention as to the condition that roads should be, instead of saying, "we are lucky we have tar roads."

Oh dear we are asked which bus station we want to be dropped off at.  How the heck do we know?  Anyway we say the one that is closest to the city centre and hotels.  Big Mistake!  The centre of this big city called Nanning, don't speak English!  Even the tourist desk inside the bus station.  One guy there even used his computer to tell me "No English."  Oh Boy!!!!  Then I find a young girl who speaks 'leeetle English'.  I ask for a map and she tells me, via computer, from a library????!!!!!

I go looking for a hotel.  Hooray there is one right next door.  Ooooops they are full! - so I walk down the road going into several hotels.  The stock answer I got was NO, nothing else but NO!  Eventually I find one and there is a young girl in the reception area who CAN speak a bit of English.  She did very well and we managed to get a room and find an ATM.  Unfortunately she had to go home.

I go down later to ask about having laundry done.  LOL!!!!!  Another mission!!  The receptionist phones a woman who can speak a bit of English, which, unfortunately, does not go as far as laundry, dirty washing etc. Eventually after much trying she tells me that she will allow me to do washing in my room!  Hello!  They only have showers in the rooms.  There is a handbasin but the plugs never work.  I give up!!!!

Now we go looking for some food.  The hotel has a restaurant but that has been booked for a bunch of very noisy kids - can't eat there.  Ok so we walk the streets again.  We eventually find a place that is called "Noodles & Rice" or something.  We see a picture on the menu and point to it ordering only one, Thank Heavens!  We get our bowl of food which turns out to be a noodle soup sort of thing with one prawn and god alone knows what other bits were in it.  Neither Frank nor I are very good with chopsticks so we get some spoons, break the noodles into smaller pieces and try to eat it.  The locals are straight-out laughing at us but we were so damn hungry we just ignored them and carried on battling.  Not happy Chappies!

We decided enough was enough, we went and booked bus tickets for the next day to Guangzhou, bypassing Yangshou (apparently you have to catch 2 buses to get there).  Far too much potential frustration!