Posted from Beijing, Beijing, China.
Bullet train in China? They go like a bullet. Fast, and straight down a chamber. Sure, we did see some countryside on the way to Beijing but we also saw a hell of a lot of tunnels, some of them must have been many km’s long. The train was comfortable with nice beds, tv for every bed, power, aircon, pretty swish, well above our standard.
Kids wanted to immediately plug in and watch TV, play Nintendo’s etc. but we convinced them school was calling so we did almost 3 hours of school work. They grumbled at first being out of the swing of it, but soon got into it. I am doing year 7 math’s with Ayesha to make her entry back into school easier next year, Nici did a mix of writing, spelling, math’s and drawing with Orlando. Both of them did really well, note to self – more school work in Beijing. As I sign off I am not sure if its night, or we are in a tunnel, or both…. Oops… bam… lights outside on its night…. Lights out… bam… back in a tunnel.
Beijing here we come. We were going to do the terracotta warriors at Xian because its listed as one of the important things to do… but in end it didn’t fit with our schedule and having come from a country with so many terracotta painted marvels in people’s front yards we decided we would skip the warriors and spend more time on the wall, the forbidden city and get into Mongolia.
The night train arrived on time, to the minute. Very fast, very efficient. We decided with all our packs to catch a taxi to our hostel. Big mistake. Huge line in underground parking lot, no aircon, so about 40 degrees and 90% humidity. Lots of touts trying to sell us cabs for 200 rmb(we knew the fair would be closer to 40). Finally got to the front of the line, and the cab driver would not take us, too many bags so we needed to get 2 cabs. Neither driver spoke English, both seemed unsure where they were going but in the end got us there. Traffic was not quite stationary for most of the way.
Hostel (9 dragons) was average and cheap for Beijing, Tried to convince them we wanted a family room, they gave us a double with two portabeds and no floor space at all. We got rid of one of the portabeds and Orlando slept with Nici in a single. Oh well. It was cheapish at least. We really came to Beijing to visit some old friends from Australia, but as luck would have it they had returned to Australia and we couldn’t wait any longer in China because of our Russian Visa. So we went on to enjoy Beijing.
We started the process of getting train tickets and Mongolian Visas. Neither seemed hard at first, we sorted where tickets were bought from, raced to the Mongolian embassy but got there too late to be processed. Still, it seemed no real problem. We were leaving Wednesday, one day processing, we could get them Monday. We spent the afternoon almost buying junk in Simlim square… in the end we bought a little bit but MAN were their aggressive. Nici was called a “Black Mother” for not buying a watch she did not want, I was literally dragged into a handbag stall… I mean.. come on… do I look like I want a handbag? Damn… that’s right… I’ve been wearing earing in both ears lately… got to revisit that.
Ayesha bought a knockoff bag, we bargained from 350 down to 100 and still paid too much probably. The next day I worked whilst Nici and the kids went off to a science fair/amusement park and did a mix of science( fun schooling) and rides. Sort of my idea of a great day so was a bit miffed to have missed it. I did get some work done so that was fine. The day after we went to the part of the Great wall of China, the “not too touristy” part apparently but on arriving it was pretty touristy with lots of stall selling overpriced pap. I wanted 2 umbrellas and a hat, it started at 290rmb, we in the end paid 50. The wall itself was amazing. You can just imagine the guards awaiting the Mongolian Hordes from the North to come charging into view…. Or at least to come slowly climbing into view… the wall itself is pretty much always built in the most inaccessible areas. We took the cable car up, and the go cart/sled down. Going down would have been more fun if we did not have the damn sissies in front of us that wanted to hang onto their brakes the whole way. We gave them an enormous start but still caught up with them quickly. We kept waiting for them to pull ahead then went screaming after them (literally in every way) but we could not get them to speed up. Grr.
The next day(Monday) we went to the Mongolian Embassy again to try and get Visas. We got there with 2 hours to spare this time but were dismayed to see at least 50 people in the line ahead of us and there was no chance we were going to get through. Damn. Buying those $600 nonrefundable tickets was no longer seeming like a good idea. Nici kind of elbowed her way to the front after an hour or so and worked out what was going on. The embassy dude only spoke English and Mongolian, most of the applicants only spoke Chinese… and the process is not a simple one. He was processing about 1 visa every 15 mintues. Nici somehow got to the front to explain to the guy on the window our predicament. He remembered Nici from Friday so he cut us a break and said wait till the end, he would process out application and she did receive some very strange looks from other desperate travellers. Meanwhile I chatted to a Russian girl, trying to befriend her and trying to get her to hand our passports in. She was not keen for whatever reason…. And for whatever reason though she had waited for 3 hours she waited in vain, her visa application was rejected.
True to his word the window dude shut the window at 11.30am on the dot… and then nothing happened for 10 minutes. People started cursing, and walking away. Then the window opened briefly, the dude motioned to Nici to give him her visa applications which she did, and then the window closed again. A little while later, window opens, a receipt for the applications is handed over and we are told to come back tomorrow at 4 for our visas. We thought we were home free. But no, wait there is more.
The following day we went to see the Forbidden City. We recognized much of it from the movie the last emperor. We paid a guide to take us through, his English was average but it was OK. He also took us to a little café for lunch which was nice. We met up with a South African chap by the name of Hugo and chatted with him as we walked around. At 3.00pm we all said our goodbyes and we started on our way to the Mongolian Embassy. OK… so we were not sure where to go so we just started walking. Did not really matter where, every train station seemed to be about 2 km’s away. Our pace was slow, multiple toilet requirements, chatting with touts wanting to give us rides etc etc, Against our experiences, we decided to get a cab(the underground is fast, cheap and trains run every 2-5 minutes) and after 15 minutes hailed one. 3.50pm. Its all good, Mongolian embassy is open till 5.00.
20 minutes later, we had gone 3 blocks. We could have walked faster. 4.10 and we had been literally stationery for 10 minutes. Nici jumped out, and headed away to find a train station. I sat in the cab with the kids, stationary, for 15 more minutes then threw some money at the cab driver and headed off to also find a train station. The traffic of course started to move as soon as we got out(bugger) and somehow we raced past the entrance to the train station which was only 50m away and went 400m the wrong way before realizing(double bugger) but finally we were in a train station. Ayesha used her marvelous, new Beijing underground skills and got us on the right train, then the right transfer and we exited at the correct train station 12 minutes after entering the first one. Parched and dehydrated from running I bought a couple of bottles of water and we raced to the Mongolian Embassy to see Nici…. And our hearts fell when we saw she was not there and the line was again, lengthy.
We saw people in the line from the day before who told us Nici has raced to the bank to deposit the visa fee. Apparently, you can’t pay for your Visas at the Mongolian Embassy, probably too much corruption. You have to deposit the money into the bank. Great. The window dude failed to mention this yesterday and now the banks were likely closed. Nici had raced to the bank, her directions were less than ideal, then follow up directions from a cop on the street were in fact totally wrong. She made it to the “bank” just before close to be told at the counter… it was the wrong bank and that the right bank would be closed.
We saw her turn the corner about 150m away 10 minutes later, shoulders slumped and this told me everything I needed to know, and it was not good. Then good old corruption came to our rescue. A lady we had met at the ticket office, and again the day before in the line told me she could not personally help me… but if I really really wanted the visas processed there was a man in the line who could help. For 500rmb he could get around the deposit the money rule. This all sounded too good to be true. We were about to lose 4200 in tickets and be delayed a week… and for 500rmb our problems could be solved? It turned out to be true, and he didn’t even need the money in advance. He did it without any issues.
Look, it could have been one huge scam. Maybe we could have convinced the window guy to accept our cash instead, maybe the window guy didn’t tell us about the bank deposit requirement on purpose. Who knows? Who cares? We had out Mongolian Visa, which twice now we had all but given up hope of even getting when Mongolia was supposed to be one of our highlights. We were going to Mongolia!
Beijing ( Mongolian Visa)- China
from Yangshuo to Mt Emai-China
Posted from Xianyang, Shaanxi, China.
We left early in the morning on the 4th day to get a bus to Guilin as we had to head north, and to search for a train to Chengdu near Mt Emai which we decided would be our next deitination. We knew there was bugger all chance of getting a train since it was still summer holidays and this proved correct… but we looked at the train station anyway. No trains for 10 days. We booked a sleeper bus, were promised one with a toilet and long beds(we got one with short beds, broken locked toilet, and Orlando got a 3 foot mattress on the floor…. It was pretty funny). The bus driver was stopping people taking their food onto the back of the bus. Not sure why. Problems with space? Didn’t want a mess? I don’t know. He grabbed one old guy and argued with him for 5 minutes. The old guy got through with his bag. I gave the bus man my best ”don’t fuck with me, I am the bad arse whingy westerner and he let me through with my large bag of food.”
Ayesha needed to pee only 40 minutes after getting on the bus so I made them do an unscheduled stop. They would not till I mimed if they did not stop, I would have her piss on the floor. They stopped. Then I noticed the bus driver had a bucket of yellow water under his seat… Gross! An hour later and Ayesha needed to go again. A cranky bus driver and his assistant again stopped the bus for the stupid white guy and his daughter and we did our business. He was yelling at us and motioning for us to hurry up… I yelled back and motioned at his broken toilet and my wallet and he nodded smiled and shut up. Nici has decided when Chinese people yell at you,which seems to happen a lot it’s important to yell back. Whether it’s a taxi driver, cleaning lady, tout, hotel person…. Chinese people seem to think yelling intimidates foreigners and if you yell at them they will do what you want. But what they don’t know is that yelling at Nici is like a red rag to a bull. Big mistake. Anyway, I have taken a leaf from her book and realized yelling when yelled at is usually effective.
We had to kill 3 hours in Guilin which was a bit painful as its pretty shitty, damn hot and humid and almost nowhere has air conditioning. We bought some essential items of clothing(undies seem to disappear like magic from our packs) and food for the bus trip. We visited an underground shopping tunnel that went for miles… no shopping for us there as we were using it as a shortcut and were running late… but it seemed cheap if a little(lot?) stinky and smoky.
PS. Chinese men smoke. Everywhere. All the time. Chinese women, don’t. Ever. OK, in 3 weeks in China there were some exceptions to this rule, but it can be broadly applied. So…. If women on average live 7 years longer than men, and smoking on average takes 10 years off your life? China must be a land of single elderly women so if you are male, over 65 and looking for love then China is the place for you.
The bus only went to Xion Ping, there we had to find another bus to Chengdu. More touts on arrival trying to scam us… but also really nice Chinese people wanting to help. In our time in China we were definitely taken advantage of… but I am happy to say, on far more occasions people helped us out of the kindness of their hearts.
The “2 hour” bus ride to Chengdu was in fact a 5 hour ride, this on top of our 13 hour trip to Xiong Ping being a 18 ½ hour one…. With 3 hours in between…. It was a LOOONG trip. We arrived in Chengdu with another couple we had befriendet in Guilin and we all resolved to try and find our way to Sims Garden Hostel.
At the main bustop, we were obviously looking puzzled and lost when this lady with her husband and small child in tow took us under her wing, sorted out what two buses we needed to catch and took us to the first bus stop. She even told us how many stops we needed to go before changing and what stop to exit at. Everything would have been just dandy were it not for 2008 Lonely Planet, a fire and two sets of directions.
You see… Sims burned down and moved. My lonely planet had the old address. I got some very clear instructions to it… which we messed up anyway… and then when we finally stumbled into a mcdonalds to get the free internet and looked it up… we realized what had happened. 2 hours burnt though, after 36 hours of travel. Grrr. We love our kids that they put up with our insane travel plans all th time. So in the end we said Bugger it, we got separate cabs(in China ALWAYS make sure you have the address in Chinese) and managed to instruct our respective drivers where to go… only to arrive and find there were no rooms! Luckily, the hostel was so popular other cheap hotels had sprung up around it and we got a cheaper room next door, whilst making use of the cool bar, restaurant and free wireless of Sims. We booked about 5500 chinese yuan worth tours and train tickets through their booking office so we did not feel too naughty.
I turned 42, so decided for such an important birthday there should be a day of celebration for each day over 39. No point in life beginning at 40, and not really living it up eh? So for day one of my birthday I booked us into the Chinese Opera which was a lot of fun. Some music, some theatre, some amazing mask and costume changing…. But it was the puppetry and shadow puppetry that were the winners in our eyes. I’d never seen anything so amazing in the world of puppetry, it was incredible.
Day 2 the Giant Panda research centre. The pandas are amazing….. amazing that they still exist. They are fossils, dating back over 8 million years… most species don’t last anywhere near that long. They are not great parents, have shrinking habitat, are not overly fertile(the men have short penises the girls have long vaginas) and they are a carnivores that have chosen to instead eat bamboo without having the necessary digestive system to get much nutrients from it. So they need to eat a heap more than a proper herbivore would, and use less energy… so they are basically eating machines for 16 hours a day, and sleep the rest. When they eat, they laze around, barely moving anything but their mouths.The cubs were funny and playful with their keeps and their mothers…. but far less so than your average puppy. So… amazing creatures… but in reality the amazing part is that they actually exist, not the actually watching them part. But we were in China, and we went and saw Pandas.
After the Panda morning, we took a bus ride to Mount Emei for some mountain forests, temples and cable car rides.We had planned to stay for 2 nights. We left our large packs behind and took day packs only. Luckily, this was only a short bus ride(2.5 hours) so no more shitty sleeper buses. We arrived at the bus stop, were offered an overpriced private ride to our hostel but got in cab for 2/3rds the price which was fine. The hostel was ok, not too flash compared with Sims… but Andy our host was the bomb. He helped us choose what bus to take, what time to go, what things to do on the mountain considering our time frame and kids in tow… awesome… We never would have mapped his itinerary and would have either tried to do too much and failed, or missed out on heaps of good stuff.
SO!The next day we took the 8am bus to the highest bust stop on the mountain, pretty steep hike of about 750 metres to the cable car, then a hot but wonderful ride to near the top. Ayesha an I were witness to an amorous couple in the cable car ahead of us. I think she must have dropped something on the floor of the cable car and was down on her hands and knees looking for it for about 10 minutes – I could not see exactly what she was doing…. He seemed very happy at the end of the cable car ride that she had found it….
We reached the top hopeful to see the sea of clouds which apparently is marvelous but rare as the sun needs to be just right and the clouds just right… instead we saw… a white out. No view, not able to see more than 50 metres off the mountain and no sea of clouds. Oh well. Orlando and Ayesha were mobbed by Chinese tourists starved of their chosen photographic target(the sea of clouds) and spent 15 minutes getting their photo taken with different groups. Finally, I bustled them away… none too soon for Orlando. Nici took lots of photos but was disappointed we had no real view to speak of. We’d packed warm clothes as we’d expected it to be much colder but as we’d changed our itinery we never got near the cold weather so we had to lug our heavier than necessary packs for the day.
We decided instead of taking the cable car to walk down. Hmmn. Seemed liked a good idea at the time and it still did a few days later but after 6 klms of steps, with everyone in similar degrees of pain, the adults each with a pair or swollen knees… there were times we thought we were crazy. The kids thought we were plain mean. But we made it down to the busstop. Many of the Chinese tourists were happy to try out their English on us and we were happy oblige them. There were many massively calved men offering rides down the mountain in a contraption you’d expect to see a Pharoah in. We declined their offers… though the kids were very keen for the experience even if only for a few metres. I was concerned once in, they would not get out.. The food on the mountain was pretty ordinary and expensive but we ate it all the same.
Bus ride to the bottom was… pretty disgusting. We were clever enough to be near the middle/front where the bus sways the least. The people up the back? Not so smart. Vomiting started about halfway down, which set a few other off and soon it was like a 18th birthday party up the back. Add to that, this old lady right a the front decided she needed to hawk up the contents of her muck filled lungs every couple of minutes and spit it on the floor. I was disgusted… but not prepared to show it.. nici on the other hand was very vocal and making it clear how disgusted she was and a gentleman two rows back passed a plastic bag down for the lady to spit into. Slightly better, but not a whole lot more. Then after about 30 minutes of looking down hawking into her bag old lady muck started vomiting into her bag if vile, and then on one particularly large heave, let out a huge fart. A mere 2 rows from us, we were hit by the dual smells of her vomit mixed with toxic spit, and the rottenness that could only be an elderly person’s fart of death. My stomach is cast iron but for a moment I tasted metal in my mouth as my stomach tried to exit me through that same entrance.
I walked into a shop to buy icecreams as a reward and made the fatal mistake of opening one before asking the price. Icecream open we were at their mercy and a $3 icecream had become $7. One lady had said $3 when another yelled at her$7 and then insisted I pay it. Beware the chinese shop with no prices! I paid up for two more whilst Nici blew up at the shop lady at the price. The shop lady just laughed and then followed us up the street for 500 metres trying to sell us accommodation. In the end she got the message that having ripped us off with icecreams, she’d blow her chances of getting us into her accommodation.
We cable carred us to another part of the mountain and we commenced the walk down to where we hoped to find accommodation.Our knees where killing us. The walk through the forrest really contrasted the walk at the top of the mountain. Apparently cicadas, many birds and monkeys don’t like the altitude so all the action and noise was down low. The forest was very different to look at as well. We were starting to not feel too much of the magic though, because of the less than magical feeling in our legs. When this little lady offered us a bed in a monastery we jumped at it. She took us a short cut way.. which was shorter… sure…. But about 3 time as steep as the normal path. Nice…. Our knees groaned. At least the short cut way had no monkeys.
The monastery turned out to be a shabby hostel so we declined, so she took us via another track to another hotel. We argued we wanted to stay in a monastery but by now were too tired… so we instead bargained the price down by 25% and stopped for the night. We were all drenched in sweat, exhausted and the shower never felt better. The room was pretty crappy, but we were tired and it served its purpose. Dinner was funny. No English menu, non English speaking staff, we made a phone call to a translation service, gave our order who translated it for us. Worked fine, we got what we ordered.
Down to our last 70 yuan luckily breakfast was pretty cheap. I had thought the walk out to the bustop at the bottom would take us 3 hours, but it took us only 55 minutes. Really amazing walk, a damn dug straight into the mountain, beautiful temples and scenery. Stunning. No monkeys which was great. Orlando hates monkeys. The trip back to Chengdu was uneventful, other than a taxi driver who seemed happy to take us around in a few circles. He did not understand English until I started motioning he was taking us around in circles and frowning at him saying Police, Police. All of a sudden, the hostel where our large bags were waiting appeared. We’d probably been within a klm of it for 15 minutes. We picked up our bags, sorted some internet time and booked a hostel in Beijing.
We jumped in cab, made our way to the station where again, nothing in English. To our rescue came some helpful locals who guided us to the correct area. Getting on a bullet train is like getting on an airplane unbeknownst to me, and I lost my spray can deodorant. Bummer, should have stuck it deeper in my bag. Not sure why it was they are considered a problem – we got one with a pretty serious knife and 4 other cans stuffed deeper in our luggage…
Bullet train in China, just a few days after a bullet train had smashed into a slower train disabled by lightening. Oh well, we weren’t scared, everyone knows lightning never strikes the same place twice… only problem was we were travelling in a different spot to where the lightening hit before… Bah… it will be fine.. far more dangerous driving around asia. Some guy had taken possession of our beds but after some explaining we convinced him he was in the wrong spot and 10 mintues later we were in and on our way.
Cormorant Fishing- China
Posted from Finland.
Cormorant fishing
These old dudes paddle down the river just after dark on bamboo rafts with a light on the front. 6-9 cormorants accompany eveyr raft, eah cormorant has a string tied around its throat so its not possible to swallow the larger fish.
Time and time again the dived into the water and came up with a small fish, which they juggled then swallowed… so they got the lion’s share of the catch. Occasionally one would come up with a larger fish and not be able to swallow it. Once a cormorants neck was bulging the old dude would haul the cormorant in with a stick and “milk” the fish out of it’s neck. No real discomfort for the bird. Occasionally a female would jump onto the raft for a rest, and a male would hop on and do some sort of territorial/courting display. The old dudes were having none of this and quickly swatted them off the raft into the water with his paddle. None to gently, but not to roughly either.
We parked on the shore and got to take photos of the birds as they sat on us. My tip is, don’t look a the birds. Ayesha eyed one and it promptly pecked her nose scaring the crap out of her and leaving a mark. Great. Now we have a boy scared to death of monkeys and a girl scared of birds.
Yangshuo – China
Posted from Guilin, Guangxi, China.
arriving in Youngshou -China after Hong Kong
Many uncomfortable hours later we arrive in Youngshou and are dropped off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of town. This is a scam which is run by the local touts in company with the bus drivers. You are effectively at their mercy as its 5am, there is no clue as to where to go. The bus then drives into town, and drops off the Chinese people who can easily walk to their hotels.
We didn’t learn about this till much so we piled into a Tuk Tuk and drove to a hotel. A guy(Robert – his English name anyway) accompanied us and told us he was the hotel manager.(Um no – just a professional tout). Room was 150Yuan and on the 6th floor. He says it’s a great room we should look at it. I complained 6th floor? The internet would not work that high and my knees were no good. He convinced us to look, I made it to the 3rd floor and said nup, bugger this and walked back down. Nici went up, to find from the 6th floor she could see down the back lane… we were in the shitty part of town very far from the river. This was really NO good as we had nice plans for here and we just wanted to relax with a nice view of the river. We said no to Robert dismay and our tuk tuk driver then went to the river, where we tried to find a few more places, but none had 3 nights available in a row. The the tuk tuk driver recommended a place on the river about 1klm away, we looked at it and though it was smoky and dirty from the previous occupants, we took it as it was right on the river and had a lovely view.
So if you ever want to travel to these regions its important to be aware of these tout and there scams/storys.
Robert tried to book us in for 3days of tours right away, but we said we are too tired and I ( Nici) was getting really pissed off with his pushiness, we wanted a rest day… he went on to tell us it was due to rain in 2 days so we needed to get organized. He would give us good discounts. I excused myself to go upstairs, checked the weather forecast for the next 3 days(fine). Came back downstairs and started negotiating. Robert’s tour prices ended up being halved; after we told him we knew the real price of the tours, and were happy to book them direct ourselves. We could have got them cheaper if we organized them ourselves, but were happy to book them through Robert as we knew that with our pushed schedule, he would likely be able to get it all organized faster and in the best order, which turned out to be true. He did a bang up job in the end, organizing all buses, connecting tuk tuk rides, boat rides, he gave us a guided tour of the surrounding farmlands which was perhaps the most fun(he did need to be reminded that he’d promised this… he thought at first riding past some fields and waving a them as we sped past on the way to the river rafting constituted this farmlands tour till we explained, actually, no, it didn’t).He also booked us Cormorant fishing tickets(Richard loved this… yes yes, its exploitation of animals but we eat Pork so i(Richard) can’t claim to much righteousness when it comes to animal welfare.) The only time he stung us really was when we went to a restaurant and we bought lunch… from the English menu. The next day we ordered similar food from a better restaurant for 50% less. Even their English menu was 30% less and when we got the Chinese menu, it was a hefty 50% less. Oh well. You can’t stay on your toes all the time – it hurts your feet to much and spoils your adventure.
Youngshou ended up being everything and more than we hoped for. Its a beautiful place that you could easily spend a couple of weeks at. Ayesha and I also got to see the most amazing light show on the river involving 600 cast. I was totally blown away since I love things like this. The Chinese don’t do anything halfhearted. We also spend a day bamboo rafting and the kids got water shooters that kept them very happy.
Entering China and our first impressions
Posted from Nanning, Guangxi, China.
Nici’s first impressions of China was it was much like the old East Germany,good old communism.Lots of Square concrete buildings with no paint. Lots of farmland. Lots of obvious poverty. The poverty started to fade away in Nanning though. Having travelled through several Asian countries and found many people who spoke English, we were struck by just how few people in China spoke English. Like most, speak none. That includes shop assistants, information, tickets sellers, cab drivers,. None. People openly stared at us, even taking photos. Ayesha who is going through a self conscious phase was not happy about it and gave many the evil eye, Orlando got his usual amount of “Oh very beautiful” with people pinching his cheeks and stroking his hair. He just smiles and is gracious about it, though deep down I know he is both pleased with the adoration, and peaved at the physical contact.
Note. Apparently its bad manners to pick up a piece of chicken bone in a restaurant with your fingers and eat it…. If you must…. Use tissues….. buts its OK, to hawk up a big gob of spit and hack it into the corner of the restaurant. Go figure that one.
True to form going into a new country without yet knowing the prices, we got ripped of pretty much straight away. I paid about 500% above the going rate for fruit. Nici paid a high price for a bag that started to fray after 1 hr. But since we were hanging out some of the day with Snake and Vincent, we paid Chinese prices twice for food, so that probably made up for it. As i write this we are travelling towards Hong Kong on the sleeper bus.
Good Bye Vietnam- Hello China
Leaving Vietnam was…. As all country leavings seem to be for us…. Somewhat eventful. Our Train was leaving Hanoi at around 10pm and on our way to the Train Station we realized that we had run out of Vietnamese Dong. Though we’d thought US dollars would be fine as that has been the case in many parts of Vietnam our Cab driver was not happy to accept them. But accept them he did after 10 minutes of arguing over what they were worth, and when he realized we had nothing else.
Then.. the “International train station” we went to, turned out to be a bit of a back street dump. We needed to get some more supplies for the train but there was no café, no shop, nothing but a couple of overpriced street stalls. The stalls wanted 30 dong for water (about 3 1/2 times the going rate). We managed to bargain them down to ten and get some meager food and away we went.
Of course, the waiting room toilet had neither toilet paper or a squirter….. I deeply regretted the extra hot chilli I had added to my dinner earlier several times in the next 24 hours. IN fact… it turned out to be a day when the toilets got progressively worse.
a. Street side dinner and beers before we left I used a squat toilet that was filthy but at least had a squirter.(That I did not need to use thank god as it was filthy).
b. On the train, squat toilet, no paper, no squirter… everything just drops down onto the tracks.Hhhmmmm!!!
c. Toilets at the Border crossing to China, squat, no toilet paper, no squirter, doors did not shut properly, poo everywhere.
d. Toilets in two restaurants in Nanning(China), pretty dirty, no toilet paper…. But a dirty squirter in one of them.
e. Children weeing or pooing anywhere-into bags – onto footpath and so on
f. The coup de gras – just before we got on the sleeper bus in Nanning(China), toilets were a 20 cm trench that ran the length of a bank of toilets, no paper, no squirter, no doors. So you squat there, shitting, watching other peoples poo float down the trench, arse to the wind as people walk up and down the toilet building past your cubicle. (vomit!!)
Oh and remember… I’d had an overdose of chili right? Nicis experience was even worse apparently as there was this lady and …. Oh never mind.
The trip itself was pretty tiring, as we never like to have to get our kids up in the middle of the night. We stop at the border at around 11pm, get out and hand over passports and get our departure stamp for Vietnam. Than we get back on go another 10 km,and the train stops again. This time we get out, take all our bags and tired children and hand over passports, eventually after being checked carefully we are allowed back on, by now it’s 12.30am and our kids can go to sleep finally… we wait for 90 minutes for train to be…. I don’t know why we had to wait we just did….. we arrive in Nanning at 9am.
