Back to China

We caught another bus back to Hanoi. While waiting we were watching the other buses and commenting on the use of the roof racks to transport the motorbikes over long distances. No lift is used to get them to the top, a couple of guys on the ground lift and a guy on the roof pulls.

The bus was late; however, it was a relatively uneventful ride. We did note that we were the only foreigners on this particular bus. Like the bus to Hué, this bus ran through the night with periodic W.C. stops.

We arrived at the bus station in Hanoi in the morning at the regular long distance bus station. We then took a cab to St. Josephs. We used St. Josephs as a location because it is a place that the cabbies can find and is only a couple of blocks from the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel.

The cabbie did run the meter; all the same, it surprised us that the cab fare was almost as much as the bus from Dong Ha. Cabs in Hanoi are surprisingly expensive. At one point Debra and I had wanted to rent a motorbike in Hanoi and discovered that we would be responsible for $1,000 USD if something were to happen to it. Neither of us wanted to risk that much; so, most personal transportation in Hanoi was on foot.

After getting to our room we went and read for a while. I then met another person, a Chinese national, who was also in our room. He wanted to know where he could get a "Lonely Planet" for Viet Nam. After trying to give him directions for the places that I had seen them selling cheaply (copies) I then offered to show him.

We then went out and he discovered his next problem. He had been told that his Chinese ATM card would work in any country by his Chinese bank. Well, on the back it says, "Valid only in China." We then went looking for a bank that would take it. After about an hour of walking, mostly in the French quarter, we found a Citi-Bank. It seems that the will take nearly any card.

While walking we had also been negotiating with street vendors for his guide book. The first person wanted 25 USD (about 400,000 VND) and I took him to someone who wanted 90,000 VND and he then continued negotiating with street vendors and eventually got it for about 70,000 VND. At that time I went to the Hostel and had dinner on the upstairs patio.

That evening Debra and I went on another walk and that was pretty much the end of another day in Hanoi.

The next morning we were put on another minibus to the Chinese border at Huu Nghi Quan (Friendship Gate). The bus was a small twelve passenger Mercedes, similar to the new Mercedes van that has recently begun to be sold in the US.

The bus took us to the border station and at that point we began the usual process of filling out various forms and then walking several hundred meters from the Vietnamese station to the Chinese Station. Again, the Chinese never checked our bags as we entered the country.

As we entered China the first thing we noticed was that, at this border station, there is nothing. There is no town or shops at all. There are just van and cab drivers all bidding to take those newly arriving to Ping Xiang. After some negotiation we arranged to have a three wheel motorcycle take us. The negotiation took the form of the first person asking for 500. When I asked, "500 what?" (remember, there are three common currencies uses at this point, RMB, USD, and VND) I was told RMB and we just kept walking. Then some cabbies came and asked for 20 RMB each and the three wheel motorcycle driver made an offer of ten RMB each. He was a good choice and even helped us with our bags and in locating the ticket window at the bus station, which he took us directly to.

We then took a bus to Nanning. It was a nice clean bus (that, oddly enough, required us to wear our seatbelts). That bus took us to the long distance bus station and then we had to cross the street to get a bus to the train station. I had a bit of trouble, at first, finding the right bus because while I can read, "Train station," on the bus schedule it was listed as, "Nanning Train Station," it may seem like a small thing, and it was, but it caused a moment of panic.

The bus was supposed to end its line at the train station. However, when the final stop was made there was no station in sight. So, I asked where the station was (hoe cher jan zai nale) the driver assumed I spoke Chinese and answered in some long, fast string. I then shrugged and pointed in all directions and he then understood and pointed me in the right direction (the direction that I had sort of gleaned from what he had said but I was not confident enough to go with).

It was here that we made a small error. Because Guiyang is a larger train hub I decided to take the train from Nanning to Guiyang. So, I got the tickets and we went and had dinner.

At this point, I will add that, dinner was its own experience. In simple, all of the food, at the small restaurant at the train station, looked disgusting. Debra and I both decided to have box noodles and some of the bread that we had brought with us from Hanoi instead. This interested the manager of the restaurant and he came over to our table, with a person to interpret, and asked what was wrong with the food. He was polite and interested in what the issues were that made the food unpalatable to us, as westerners. We discussed it for a while and got some free beer out of the conversation.

As we told him, the dishes all contained parts of the chicken that we do not eat and bones, that we do not eat, or pork. He then asked what we would rather have (adding that they do not know how to cook hamburgers [which they see as the quintessential American food]). We then told him that a simple vegetable dish, on rice, would have been very good. He then pointed out that there was a vegetable dish. We told him that it clearly had pork in it. He agreed that it had pork in it. We explained to him that the presence of pork makes it a pork dish, not a vegetable dish. He then understood our point and we chatted about a few other things for another moment or so.

The mistake we had made was in thinking that there would be more trains to Xin Yang at Gui Yang. At least we got a seat on the train from Nanning to Gui Yang. However, when we got to Gui Yang we found out that there was only one train to Xin Yang, and it originated in Nanning. Thus, we would have done as well to have stayed where we were.

It got worse; there were no bunks or seats on the train. This meant that we would have to make the fourteen hour trip in the standing room cars.

There were only two cars open to standing room and the only tickets being sold were standing room. As I am sure you can guess; it was crowded. The first thing we did was to ask the conductor for a ticket upgrade to a bunk. However, there were no bunks. One good thing about asking for an upgrade was that it made it clear that we were in standing room because it was the ticket that we could get, not because we were cheap. Based on this he insured that we had room to set our packs on the floor of the connecting area between the cars and sit on them as we made an attempt to sleep.

We arrived in Xin Yang and were pleasantly surprised to discover Gao Jing was at the train station waiting for us to arrive. While we were in route Gao Jing had also secured tickets to Qingdao, for Debra, and Xian, for me.

The DMZ

The next morning we headed over to the "DMZ Café," as we had previously agreed, to meet our guide. The plan was simple. I would ride one motorcycle and Debra would ride behind the guide. The reason for this was that I felt that she would be safer with someone who regularly carried passengers. This also gave her a better tour as she was able to ask questions while riding.

There were also two others on the tour. They were also riding one motorcycle each. The bikes on this tour were small Yamahas', similar to the Honda utility bikes seen all around the world. We also wore helmets as there is a helmet law on the highways, but not in town, in Viet Nam.

The first place we went to was a rubber plantation. This plantation is in area that was entirely deforested during the war. While most of the ground had been smoothed, there was a single crater that was left intact to give visitors an idea of what the landscape looked like.

From there we went to the Marine Firebase Charley. This was one of a long string of bases that ran the width of the country. As in most of the old war sites, there was very little left, in this case there was a single bunker and at a different place, a large, thick concrete wall. It was about a 30m square and about 1m thick placed on one edge with some triangular concrete supports. It looked like it was intended as a blast wall to protect something.

The trip to the firebase had us riding down several narrow roads and finally stopping in another small plantation. From there we walked along a narrow foot path to the base. As this was intended to be both a defensible location and an observation point, the view was excellent.

From there we rode to a section of the Ho Chi Min trail. I was very surprised by what I saw. I had a mental picture of a trail, as I think of a trail; instead, it was a paved road. It had been built by the Cubans. The bridges, such as the one we visited, the Ben Tat Bridge, were destroyed by American bombers; but, it was clearly a narrow, paved, road.

As I understand, after leaving Viet Nam, it does revert to being a dirt road and there are sections of trail. There are also sections of trail as it bypasses bombed sections. But overall, it is a road.

From there we visited one of many war memorials that are along the DMZ, the Truong Son National Cemetery. Most of the graves at this memorial were for the "Heroes" and "Masters;" or, those who took part in the, unwinnable, battles and operations against the Americans and French.

After seeing these memorials Debra and I were left with a question, where are the South Vietnamese soldiers buried?

We were told that the families were notified of the locations of their bodies and were given the opportunities take the bodies and place them in their gardens. The cemeteries were then used for used as sites for public works, such as schools and hospitals.

Then a last comment was made that set me to thinking. The comment was, "After all, they lost war." The thoughts went along the line of, how is it possible that they lost the war. If they were members of nation X and nation X was restored then all members of the armies of nation X were, be definition, soldiers for nation X. There can be no, "they." If it is possible for there to be a, "they," then it is incumbent that there truly were two different nations and people. At that point I started paying attention to other things and realized that there is still a lot of North-South "issues" and resentment that remains to be resolved. They are not loudly stated, but it still seems to be a sore spot.

From there we took several back roads in our trip to the beach. I was shocked to realize what a narrow country Viet Nam was. We traveled over half the width of the country in a short ride.

Our next stop, in route to lunch, was the Hien Luong Bridge that spanned the Ben Hai River. This river formed the temporary border, along the 17^th parallel between the North and the South, based on the Geneva Agreement of 20 July 1954. Along with buildings devoted to allowing meeting between representatives of The North and The South, and a French bunker, there was also a grand sculpture depicting a woman and her children waiting for their father to return to the south. This reflected the number of men who lived in the south and traveled to the north for training and weapons before returning to the south, and their homes, to wage war against the French and the Americans, at night, while going about their normal business during the day.

Lunch was eaten outside, under a cover, with hammocks to lie in after our meal at the Cua Tung Beach. This is the first beach that I had seen in my trip to Asia and it was a beautiful beach. The water was clean and there was no trash or litter to be seen.

As is the practice in Asia, we remained there for several hours avoiding any activity in the middle of the day. I have to say, I did not order as much as I would have because, simply, the prices were not written on the menu; but instead, were to be negotiated while ordering. Having been cheated with similar situations, in China, I was very shy of the entire approach. As it was, the prices were a bit high, but considering the environment, reasonable, not too high. But, as I said, before I ordered, I had no way of knowing. They would have gotten more of my money if they had just told the price up front.

From the Cua Tung Beach we rode to the Vin Moc Tunnels. This was a large tunnel complex that became the home of over 5,000 soldiers and their families during the war.

It was here that we did something that we were not quite supposed to do. We went on a self guided tour.

We were told to duck into one of the entrances and have a quick look and come back out. Well, we ducked in, and kept going. By doing this we were able to visit nearly the entire tunnel, including many sections that most tourists never see. We saw many of the exits that gave us access to, yet another, beautiful beach.

After close to an hour of exploring we returned to the entrance, by a surface trail. Our guide was a bit frantic. He was sure that he had just lost his tourists. He was very concerned that the sections that we went into were narrow and had no overhead lights; that we were limited to our torches for light and safety.

I do understand his point, I am also glad that we did it. After we all reassembled we followed the normal tour that started with a visit to the museum on the site and then went to a small section of the tunnels that were wide and well lit. This "tourist" section forms less than a quarter of what is really there. The tourist section is interesting (even though we had already seen it on our "self guided" venture) but there is a lot more. Remember to bring your own torch.

From there we headed toward the remains of an American tank, there was really very little there, anything salvageable was already stripped. We then walked to yet another US and French base. It also provided a good view from the top of the bunker. However, the bunker itself, the one we were standing on, was not clearly visible and I asked if the one we were on was similar to another that was near by. The guide misunderstood my question and said that we could not walk to that one because the German landmine clearing company was not finished and it was not safe to walk to it, yet another reminder that when walking in SE Asia, STAY ON THE PATH!

From there we rode back to Dong Ha, returned our motorcycles and took an evening bus back to Hanoi.