Rice is Nice

Stephen and I left Hong Kong on Monday, after a breakfast of pancakes and English muffins courtesy of our host, Mrs. A. We realized, a bit late, that we needed to make a run for the border or we had no chance of catching the last trains possible that would allow us to meet our friends in Hanoi at the appointed time. So we took a taxi to the Hung Hom train station. The train across the border into Guangzhou (aka "Canton") was comfortable and uneventful. At Guangzhou, we took a taxi across town (seemingly a huge city) to another train station, only to find that the night train to Nanning only had standing room available. We weren't excited about the prospect of standing all night, so we made for the bus station, but not before Stephen walked away from his bag. Fortunately, the bag was still there, and the bus station was nearby. Unfortunately, the heat was oppressive. But we bought tickets for a sleeper bus to Nanning without a problem. We went down toward the Pearl River and ate in a large, anonymous restaurant atop what seemed to be a wholesale market for cheap jewelry. This is several stops upstream in the supply chain from Claire's Boutique.

The night train to Nanning was not comfortable. The beds were short enough that anybody over 5'10" or so would have to sleep in a stress position. The narrowness wasn't a problem, but it was necessary to buckle one's self in to avoid falling out of the bunk around turns. Annoyingly, a kung fu movie was played at high volume for the first 90 minutes or so. Then we took an interminably long break at a rest station for no apparent reason. After that, the bus continued in silence, and I slept fitfully on the top right bunk. (The bunks are three abreast, and two high.) When we arrived in Nanning, we were able to go ahead and buy a ticket for another bus to Pingxiang, near the Vietnamese border. The landscape along the drive was already more lush than what we were used to, and the people along the side of the road sported the conical grass hats that one sees in Vietnam. At the Pingxiang station, we negotiated to take a "cyclo," which is basically a motorcycle with a cab attached about 15km to the border. We also sold our last RMB for Vietnamese dong.

At the border, we had to carry our stuff a few hundred meters. There, one passes a mildewy, yellow structure, the kind that is common in Vietnam. Men sat on the porch smoking, with a sign nearby that merely said "French style building." This would date from a time when France controlled not only Vietnam, but its links to China and the railroad in that part of China. A bit further, we passed under an imposing stone archway, and then onto a large, modern customs facility. The Chinese border check was a model of efficiency, and a stark contrast to what was to come. After getting the requisite stamps, we walked across the border a few yards into Vietnam, and the border check there.

Good-bye to China at the Friendship Gate

The Vietnamese border check process was frustrating, and a discouraging start to my month in this country. The building is the kind of depressing, anonymous structure with flickering fluorescent lights that makes one want to just doze off. And the workers there were half-way there. One goes to the second window to get a card. You fill out the card. You take the card and your passport to the first window. They look at your passport closely and make faces like they've never seen a foreign passport before. In my case, they picked at the laminate covering my picture to the point that they nearly tore off that layer, which pissed me off. This took about half an hour. The computer breaks, they call people, they process 100 Chinese passports, and they get back to yours. Then, you get your passport back with the wrong card. Then you insist that they find the right card. Then you go back to the second window with half the card, and give it to them, and pay 2,000 dong (about USD 0.12). Then, you put your bag through a "metal detector," though there's no screen on which anybody watches what's in your bag. Finally, you walk out, and you're free to explore Vietnam, more or less.

People sometimes say that Vietnam is like China ten years ago. But I'm not even sure that there is anything approaching unanimity, or even a dominant majority, of the Vietnamese CP that really wants this to be an easy, efficiently-run country. Instead, they seem content to breed fear of foreigners to justify the tight security. The infrastructure in China is impressive, even by Western standards. In Vietnam, it is passable. And it's not clear that anything of significance has been built since independence.

We got a taxi to Lang Son, the nearest town. In Lang Son, we sat around for a while, politely declining the bia hoi (fresh-made beer) offered to us, on account of the sketchy ice. Finally, the van left for Hanoi, stopping several times along the way to dump people out and pick people up at country crossroads. A few hours later, we arrived at our hotel in Hanoi.

Muneesha and Jae, the friends we were to meet, were late arriving from Cambodia, but they made it. And our hotel, the Win Hotel, was well-located and clean. I highly recommend it.

I was fortunate enough to get a call from my dad this morning, but I was a bit delirious because it was early, and probably also because I was sick. I didn't realize how sick until I got up a few hours later. Anyway, I stayed in all day. I blame the spaghetti carbonara at Stone Rose Cafe in Yangshuo, Guanxi Province, PRC. Fortunately, our hostess, Mrs. A, played "doctor mom" and brought me medicines and water and stuff. I felt like a bit of a bum lying in bed all day at a stranger's house. But it was as comfortable as could be, and from my sick bed I could look out the window over the south side of Hong Kong Island and the South China Sea beyond. Not bad. Being an expat worker in HK and being well taken-care of by one's employer would be a nice arrangement. The views are amazing up here, and there are pools, schools, and playgrounds for the kids. I think there might be a lot of idle wives here, though. Many of them don't work, and many still have a live-in helper. So I don't know what they do. Some were sitting by the pool at this complex all day.

View from the Peak looking toward Central

By the evening, I did muster enough energy that Stephen (who had gone around town) and I went out and got drinks in Lan Kwai Fong (which is a small area where Bourbon Street meets Hong Kong, basically) and then had Nepalese food.

Yangshuo has a reputation as the backpacker haven of southern China. There are a lot of young, Western people who stick around for a while. But it's not as crunchy as I'd expected. It's really too commercial, right at the end of one of China's greatest tourist attractions, to remain that way. If anything, I think that the reputation itself now brings people who look for a trinket or memory of a bohemian hang-out rather than the real experience of it. And I don't know why anybody would drop out to Yangshuo. It's a reasonably pleasant town amidst some natural beauty. But the town is quite commercial, and is not all that big. Most of the restaurants serve pizza, burgers, smoothies, and whatever else these travellers crave. So Stephen and I had pizza for dinner while here. And I did have Campari and soda as an aperitif. But the bars were off-putting, as they all played the same loud music in identical caverns of blue and red lights. So we had a fairly early night, and slept in the next morning. After a leisurely lunch of spaghetti carbonara, it was back to Guilin and off the the airport. Our driver drove her rickety taxi over bad, dirt roads, all in an effort to avoid paying tolls (which actually are shockingly expensive here).

In Hong Kong, we are staying with the mom and stepdad of one of Stephen's college friends. They leave at the Peak, quite literally. The large apartment overlooks the southern part of the island from our bedroom, and overlooks Central, the bay, and Kowloon from the dining terrace. It's pretty amazing. Hong Kong is, quite easily, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its streets do not form a grid, though, and things aren't very far apart, which are reminders that this was not started as a Chinese city.

Arriving into Guilin last night was easy, and we were able to arrange our Li River cruise (the only reason why people come to Guilin) at the airport. So we got up early and boarded a van, that would take us to a bus, that would take us to the boat.

The humidity in Guilin is oppressive. The city is reasonably attractive, with some water running through it, and lots of green. It is built in the midst of these large karst outcroppings that make the scenery famous. I guess the ongoing erosion has a dark side though. Our tour guide pointed out one building that fell victim to a large boulder just a few weeks ago. The family that was eating dinner inside at the time didn't make it. The people are really short. They're also quite friendly. The first driver of our day, as he maneuvered around a crowded car-park in front of a hotel, spoke only in American idioms. He would back up into a space and say "piece of cake." Or he derided another's driving habits and then said that he always puts his best foot forward. After each proclamation, he'd say "are you with me?"

We were lucky enough to have sunny weather for the Li River scenery. And it is beautiful, though the heavy boat traffic keeps it from being actually peaceful. Again, much of the scenery was of the sort where you are supposed to see how a rock looks like an animal or a girl or something.

The Li River scenery we came for

Cooking with boat fumes on the Li River

We went on another optional tour, visiting a farmhouse, and then seeing a guy fish with cormorants. The cormorants are large, ugly birds. Stephen got scratched by one on the arm, so he's convinced he'll come down with rabies. They tie strings around the birds' throats, and then send one of them loose in the water. Within 30 seconds, the bird dives, comes up, and returns to the fisherman. The fisherman then squeezes the fish out of the bird's neck and puts it in his bag. Every so often, he allows the bird to eat. It's kind of an ugly process to watch, but I don't think it's any worse than using any other beast of burden.

Ethnic Yao woman sings into traditional megaphone

Cormorant fisherman, fantasizing about joining the circus

We decided to stay overnight in Yangshuo, which is at the other end of the Li River tour. More on that later.

The karst rises out of the land, too, breaking up farm fields near Guilin

I wear this shirt to blend in with the rice fields

Today, we should have gone on a plant tour with Rupert. But it was quite far, and we were not sure how easy it would be to get there and get back in time for our flight. So I figured that I'd go to the Nanjing Museum, which is supposed to be good. Instead, I laid around and read while Stephen played around on the Internet. Then we had a lunch that was sooo long because it was impossible to get a waitress to stop at our table. Eventually, we figured out that the tables had doorbell-like things on them that you could push, which sounded a chime up at the front desk. That elicited a prompt response. And this cafe, near our hotel and near the university, was elaborately decorated. It was full of faux gold and cheap-looking-trying-to-look-expensive tapestry. It would have been more at home in Russia. But I just sat there and ate my lunch slowly, and we went to the airport early. I gave up on the museum, because I could not bring myself to see more bronze objects, or silk robes, or whatever. I'm tired of taking interest in things.