22 July 2018, Sunday
This will be a really short post because it was one of those days when nothing eventful happened. Nanning is not a tourist destination and there aren’t many notable sightseeing places in the city. I lay in bed for as long as I could until I finally dragged myself out of my room at 9:30am and headed to the hotel restaurant for the complimentary breakfast, which ended at 10:00am. The food was acceptable, but some items in the buffet had already run out by then so I didn’t have much to choose from.
After having my fill, I went out to have a walk around. It was already dark when I arrived late last night so I hadn’t seen much of Nanning yet. I went back to the main Chaoyang Road and revisited the malls. I wasn’t in the mood to spend so it was mainly just to window shop, and also to escape into the comfort of air-conditioning.
As mundane as it may seem, one of the things I like to do when I’m overseas is to visit the supermarket. It is just interesting to see what kind of local products they have on the shelves, even though I don’t have any intention to buy them.
I was surprised to see that there were durians on sale at only CNY 14.98 (S$3.12) apiece. I know that China has developed a growing appreciation for durians in recent years. In fact, the best durians from Malaysia are increasingly being exported to China because of the growing demand and their ability to pay for them.
The durians on sale here were of the Golden Pillow (金枕榴莲) type, which I had never heard of before (A quick Google search reveals that it is a variety from Thailand). They were put in a pile with no one attending to them. I wonder how they will pack the durians when you want to buy them home…will they provide a cloth bag or a thick paper bag like in the old days?
I was amazed to see the wide range of Pocky flavours available here. I bought two flavours that I had never tried before – peach and red/blueberry. These will form my stash of snacks to accompany me for my overnight train to Hanoi later. I was also very happy to find a small bottle of fresh milk. It had been so hard to find fresh milk in China. For some reason, they prefer sour milk here.
After that, I couldn’t think of anything else to do so I went for an 80-minute massage session to pamper myself. With my muscles relaxed and soothed, I went back to check out of my hotel at 2:00pm. I then spent the next couple of hours idling around before walking to the Nanning Railway Station at 4:45pm.
Back in April before I set off for my trip, I had booked an overnight sleeper train from Nanning to Hanoi in Vietnam via the Travel China Guide website. For my soft sleeper, I paid US$48 for the ticket plus a US$19 service fee, US$7 delivery fee and US$2 PayPal fee, so it amounted to US$77 (S$104.04) altogether. I had made arrangements for the ticket to be delivered to my hotel in Shanghai last week.
Upon receiving the ticket, I saw that the price printed on it was only CNY 215 (S$44.83), which would appear that Travel China Guide took a huge chunk of commission out of it. Of course, it is expected that the company will impose a service charge, but it felt excessive in this case. Anyway, I booked the ticket months in advance for peace of mind. I also had it delivered to my hotel while in Shanghai, which saved me a lot of hassle, so I will just treat it as a convenience fee.
Nanning Railway Station was much smaller and older than Nanning East Railway Station, where I arrived from Changsha last night. The waiting hall was also small and very noisy, like a marketplace. I noticed that most of the racket was caused by the kids, but the parents did nothing about it as they were absorbed in their own mobile phones. I think China still has some way to go in terms of becoming a civic-minded society. At 5:40pm, we started queuing to enter the train departure platform.
When I entered my cabin, I found a family of three Chinese already in it, so I didn’t have the chance to take photos of the cabin. Anyway, it was like a standard soft sleeper cabin that I had encountered before on the train from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing. It felt nice to be back on an overnight sleeper train again as I kinda missed the Trans-Mongolian journey experience.
My T8701 train departed Nanning at 6:05pm. The 396km journey to Hanoi would take 11 hours and 25 minutes. At 10:16pm, we arrived at the small Chinese border town of Pingxiang (凭祥镇). Here, we got off the train with our luggage to clear Customs. The process was quite breezy and we returned to the train in less than 30 minutes. However, we still had to wait for almost an hour before the train moved off again at 11:38pm.
At 12:24am on 24 July 2018, Monday, we arrived at the Vietnamese border town of Đồng Đăng. Since Vietnam is one hour behind Beijing time, it was technically still 11:24pm local time. I can’t remember how long it took to clear Customs but it would be another six hours before we arrived in Hanoi. Time to catch some sleep on board.
With that, it was officially the end of the China leg and on to Vietnam, the 16th country of my trip! The Grand Adventure continues…