Slow Boat (train) to China

After a few days in Hanoi and planning our next move, Bob and I were feeling a bit like tourist sheep on the prescribed tourist trail – do Hanoi, then Halong Bay, then the hill tribes in Sapa.  So impulsively based on a recommendation from a chance encounter with an Indonesian tourist (plastic surgeon from Jakarta) we decided to skip Halong Bay and go to Guilin in China.  

After a bit of background internet research we went off to the train station to buy tickets.  Given the price of the tickets and our internet research we were expecting a fairly nice train (perhaps an up-market soft sleeper).  According the ‘Man in seat 61’ website the M1 train to China is an express that runs only Monday and Fridays and quite comfortable with special carriages.  We booked the Friday express but when we were hustled into our train which consisted of only one carriage(no different than the other very basic Vietnamese carriage we had from HCMC to Danang) and the engine, 5 crew members and only two other passengers (Vietnamese/Chinese) we were wondering if perhaps we had been set up for kidnapping by a white slave trading triad.  

The 5 crew members provided absolutely no services and played Ma Jong all night or slept in the empty compartments.  There wasn’t even any hot water in the machine for our reserve supply of pot noodles.  So dinner that night consisted of some cashew nuts and crackers we had in our bags.

At around 11 pm we arrived at the border crossing town of Dong Dang and realised that the reason the tickets were so expensive was that we were really getting the Red Carpet treatment.  As we were getting off the train, the filthy tattered red rubber matting on the floor was being rolled up no longer needed for the local run back to Hanoi!  The other two passengers on the train were locals and exited the station while we were ushered into a massive and totally empty station with two border guards to check our passports.  Suddenly we were in a Le Carre novel and this was Checkpoint Charlie.  

We made it through, no guns or manacles and were ushered into the Chinese train.  This had three carriages but also was totally empty.  The carriages were the same make as the Vietnamese carriages but these were clean, well maintained and fitted out with pretty curtains (all sparkling clean) and real carpet (but not red).  There was an initial check of passports and visas then we were told our passports would be stamped about an hour into China.  So around 12.30 am we entered, again a totally empty station, a very official looking uniformed officer closely inspected our passports, rubbing the pages between his fingers to test the paper (my passport was all wrinkled from water damage suffered during Songkran in Chang Mai three years ago) and took them away for about 45 minutes.  Was he calling the Australian Embassy to check our bone fides?  Finally our stamped passports were returned and we were on our way – a whole train essentially to ourselves. 

We arrived at Nanning at 5.30 am, a clean and modern station with electronic automatic flushing squat toilets.  We were lead to and locked into a massive, but totally empty marble lined waiting room with about 100 overstuffed chairs, garden atrium with fish pond and Chinese morning tv news.  There we waited by ourselves with the occasional train official walking by ignoring us.

Locked waiting room at  Nanning Train Station

 

Marble lobby of Nanning Train Station

The empty waiting room Nanning Train Station

After about 1 ½ hours waiting we were lead back to our train which had gone from 3 empty carriages to 16 moderately full carriages.  We had tried to get some Chinese RMB in Hanoi but none of the banks we went to had any.  We had read that we could get Chinese Yuan at Nanning so figured we get some there at the train station ATM during our stop over.  But as we were locked into the waiting room we couldn’t check the station for ATMs and it was too early for the banks to open.  So even though this train had a food car and services we had no money to buy anything.  The train did have hot water machines so our standby supply of pot noodles could be used and our tummies didn’t rumble too much.

Five hours to go to Guilin and the scenery was spectacular - Limestone karsts jutting out of lush verdant fields of rice, corn and sugarcane.  We were getting good feelings about China.