Early 6 o’clock wake up once again. I had no choice as I had to board the 5pm overnight train from Nanning to Guangzhou. I was out the door before the usual time the free breakfast was to be served, but the hotel was generous enough to offer me granola cereal with a banana on the side! The morning was dark and blue; it wasn’t until 10 that the sun finally rose over the dense fog, which gave the land warmth and a sense of depth. I took in a bit of the country side, and just sat back and continued working on my blog. On our way to the border, we made a short visit to a rest stop which consisted of a souvenir shop, a money exchange and a small patio restaurant. I exchanged the rest of my dong into Chinese yen and headed straight to the restaurant for my last enjoyable Vietnamese meal. Delicious, nothing better than warm pho to heat the body and mind!
The border crossing wasn’t too difficult; they all gave us tags so it was a smooth and easy transition from the Vietnam bus to the China bus. Crossing borders was by foot, nothing much to say except China’s checkpoint was a lot nicer than Vietnam’s. Sorry no pictures, I wasn’t in the mood to pull out my camera in front of six Chinese officials inside their checkpoint. In no time at all, I was on the new bus heading towards Nanning where I would try to board an overnight train to Guangzhou, transfer to Shenzhen by local train and walk through a border crossing into Hong Kong. The scenery was amazing, mountain haystacks dispersed across a landscape densely populated with trees. The weather also changed from a sunny morning to a misty overcast afternoon. The ride was comfortable and relaxing; I plugged in the iPod and continued writing from where I left off on the last bus.