Almost back home...

At the moment we are in an internet cafe in Nanning. We arrived here at around 9.30 in the morning from our trip from Hanoi.

The train ride from Hanoi went really smooth, the train service was run by Chinese which means the train is a lot cleaner. When we went to Hanoi using the same train we were already amazed by how few passangers were on the train but this time it was even worse (or should say better for us). Including us 2 there were only 5 passangers on the train. And when we arrived at the customs I counted that there were at least 16 staff on the train....really makes me wonder how long they will still keep having daily train service between Vietnam and China....

One of the negative things (I guess due to so few passangers on the train) was that they didn't have a restaurant cart.... That was something we didn't expect...we had not brought any food with us... Luckily one of the other passangers; a Spanish guy; did bring something to eat with him which he intended to have as breakfast but luckily for us quite happily gave away :).

The Spanish guy was travelling all the way from Spain to China by train (or bus in certain countries without proper railway...). His reason: because trains have a lot lower carbon emmission than airplanes... Quite sure he is right about that but personally think it is a little crazy to spend 2.5 month to travel a distance that can be covered in about 12 hours...

Anyway, once we arrived in Nanning we exchanged money back into RMB and then went on to the ticket office. We booked train tickets for the earliest departure to Guanghzhou : 00.30. We did get the last 2 remaining spaces on this train, quite lucky otherwise would have to spend one night in Nanning were there is actually not really a lot to do... So at the moment killing some time in internet cafe until it will be time to head back to the train station. We should be arriving in Guanghzhou at around 11.00 tomorrow morning. Then from there should still take a few hours until we are back in HK...