Results tagged “China”

After Sapa, I need to cross the border as my Chinese visa expires the following day. I'm incredibly nervous about the trips because I'm changing passports between the two countries and have heard less than favourable things about the Chinese border guards.

Forty minutes after entering the Vietnamese side of the border, I'm allowed to cross to the Chinese side after the official checks and rechecks and re-rechecks both of my passports and Visas.

Photo from the Vietnamese side of the border after finishing the formalities in Vietnam, Lao Cai (Vietnam) is in the foreground, Hekou (China) in the background.

The Chinese side of the border crossing is far easier, I fill out my entry card, show my passport and visa and am let in to China within ten minutes.

I book a sleeper bus ticket to Kunming (having just missed the last bus) and have to spend the next five hours in the town waiting for the bus. As with my border crossing into Laos, it's raining for most of the day so I spend the time inside chatting to a fellow Aussie (Richard) that was walking past my restaurant while I was having lunch.

Richard walks me to the ATM and with an hour to go until my bus, informs me that the time in China is one hour ahead of that in Vietnam, I now have five minutes until my bus. I run through the rain to the bus station, meet two Singaporeans (Dawn and Waisan) on the bus and thankfully, I don't miss my bus.

Two hours into our trip, we are woken up by police that come on to the bus and check everyone's passports and ID cards. Dawn takes a photo of one of the police women who then confronts her and makes her delete the photo.

After the scary experience of being ID checked, the bus driver decides he would like to kill us and spends the rest of the trip speeding (40km/hr instead of 25-30) over the potholes. No one is getting any sleep now as we are too busy holding on to our seats. I count the number of times we hit a pothole so fast that that I fly out of my sleeper and hit the ceiling and still have the small bumps to show for it.

We arrive at six at Kunming, have one of the worst meals ever and spend the next two hours looking for a nearby hotel as Waisan and Dawn are flying to Beijing the following day.

The museum isn't all that exciting although this one picture has me scratching my head.

Robocop is very popular in Kunming, I spot five, I think if you push his bellybutton it summons the police.

I find the MSG in Kunming.

It's hiding over here.

One of Kunming's libraries.