nanning, china

Note: If you read Aaron's comment (thanks a lot!) and went to Lance's blog and read the rest of the story, this might be boring. Hopefully I'm not writing this in vain.

When we arrived at the border between Vietnam and China, everything went smoothly for Lance and I, and although they were very thorough on the Chinese side (even rooting through all our bags), we were through in very little time. As we waited on the bus to Nanning, there were no signs of Phil. After at least 45 minutes, the bus began to move. We frantically tried to get it to stop and wait, or at least let us off to wait for Phil, but they would have none (I'm still not sure what the problem with leaving us there was). We were told that Phil could take a bus leaving two hours later and that we could meet him in Nanning. Sure enough, after waiting in the station, we found Phil, who claimed he had been detained because he didn't look much like his passport picture, and his signature had changed. I don't buy it considering both of those stipulations apply to me as well. Regardless, we had now lost two hours, and were faced with finding our way around in the dark. Arriving in Nanning was similar to the experience we encountered traveling from Singapore to Indonesia: overwhelming. In Indonesia it was because of excessive touts. In Nanning, it was because we suddenly realized that we had no Chinese currency, no knowledge of Mandarin or concept of how in the world to read characters, and no one who could speak English to us. In a way, it was refreshing. During our two day stay in Nanning, we only sighted two tourists, uruguayos. Unfortunately the refreshment quickly turned to utter frustration. After recreating the tiny characters for "ATM" and our hostel's address to a more legible (?) size, we set off, hoping the driver had understood. Sure enough, we passed an ATM and then stopped, and Lance set off through the crowds (the Chinese sure know how to make a crowd!) to get enough money for the taxi and hostel. 20 minutes later (in which Phil and I suffered the wrath of an antsy taxi driver yelling in an indecipherable tonal gibberish) Lance showed up, with no cash. After trying at least 5 machines, we finally got my card to work, and we were able to pay the driver and get a triple room in a hospital-like hotel. What else can be said about Nanning, China? Good noodles. Good, homemade noodles. Thick and delicious. At this point, we were still at the "pointing at pictures" stage, but we happily chanced on a Muslim-run noodle jo'nt with plenty of pictures. Perfect.