Ni hao! Welcome to China..

We caught a bus from Hanoi to the nearest large Chinese city over the border – Nanning.  We had another cultural shift when we crossed the border – going from the Vietnamese passport control where everyone just pushes to the counter and if you don’t push hard enough you won’t get there, to the shiny, organised Chinese immigration.  We had to put our bags through a couple of xray machines, walk through the fever monitor and fill out declarations to say we weren’t suffering from any sort of illness.

The Chinese passport officers get our award for the nicest border control we’ve had so far.  They were friendly and actually smiled and said “Hello!”, laughed and joked with the kids and generally were very nice.  (As a side note – we did not get our bags searched and therefore did not have our Lonely Planet confiscated, as we’ve heard from others).  In fact, the security was far tighter at Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum!

We were taken by an oversized golf buggy from immigration to our new Chinese bus.  We were all going along swimmingly, enjoying the Chinese hospitality and nice new bus until we asked to go to the toilet before the bus left.  The bus hostess (they have someone on all Vietnamese & Chinese buses who hands out water and food) pointed off behind the main building and so off we went.  We went around the corner to find an old corrugated shed and we were thinking, “Where?  She pointed around here but I don’t see the toilet?”  Oh yes – it was the shed!  A hole dug in the ground surrounded by tin walls and roof.  We were amazed, as we were surrounded by this nice new complex where the bus leaves from but apparently they had forgotten to add a bathroom!  Needless to say we got all hoity toity and decided we could hang on!

Off we went on the flashy new Chinese bus, enjoying the nicely paved, double lane motorway, including the fact that the driver stuck with a consistent speed and didn’t blow the horn every 5 minutes!  It was like rediscovering civilization..

Nanning completely blew us away – we arrived just on dark and the city lights were just coming on.  (China, by the way, loves lights – every building must have neon of some sort).  This city was huge – we’re told it’s a bit like the boonies for Chinese – it is a border town after all and the population is a mere 2.5 million!  For us, it was like some mega metropolis – skyscrapers went on and on and there were apartment blocks by the 100.  Cranes were framed against the skyline, building more and more apartment buildings and Paul immediately patted himself on the back for buying those iron ore shares!

The bus kept on driving and driving, and we were wondering when were we actually in the centre of town?  As is typical of every bus ride we’ve taken, the bus stopped in a horrible little muddy, dimly lit  back lot.  We heaved our backpacks out into the real world again in search of the kids’ holy grail..  That thing that had been denied them since Thailand – a month and a half of sheer deprivation..

Nanning of course would not disappoint – being the megaplex it was – we found at least 5 giant neon signed Ronald McDonald’s within 100 metres of each other.  Oh Big Mac.. how I have missed you…