China – Vietnam Border
17 December 2019.
The next morning, I left Duoyishu (多依树) at 0800 for an hour’s ride to Xinjie Bus Terminal (新街镇汽车客运站)where I would get a minivan down to the new district, Nansha (南沙) for a bus to Hekou (河口). I intended to cross into Vietnam that afternoon but would see how things go.
Last look around at the surroundings of Hello Cloud Inn. 0802 hr.
I boarded a minivan with ten people squeezed into it, there were still two passengers squeezed into the front next to the driver and this time, I sat on a wooden stool next to the van door. The driver continued to pick up more passengers and one lady even half-squatted at the back throughout the journey. We swayed from side to side with every bend which the driver navigated with immense accuracy and at speeds I would never dare to try. Thankfully most of them got off at the village market like yesterday and it was just myself, two more passengers and the lady who was half squatting at the back left in the van. There was now space for her to comfortably sit for the rest of the journey. The Hani people speak their own language and with the everyday minivan transportation that seems to promote chances for conversation with strangers, it is no wonder the Hani people seem to know one another. With each new passenger, the lady who was half squatting at the back of the minivan earlier greeted them and it wasn’t long before we started talking.
Everyone packed like sardines into the passenger car. 0820 hr.
The Hani people have their own calendar where their days are represented by animals. On Rabbit（兔）, Pig （猪）, Goat （羊） days, locals from the mountains will gather at one place to sell their products, an event which is locally known as Gan Ji （赶集）. The ethnic gathering only occurs routinely in Xinjie Town (新街镇) and Sheng Cun (胜村) on those particular days of the Rabbit, Pig and Goat and I am still unsure about interpreting their calendar but according to this Hani lady, the locals will gather at Xinjie Town (新街镇) every Saturday. When an eldery woman boarded the minivan, this Hani lady taught me to tell the difference between their ethnic costumes. Apparently, the elderly woman who had just boarded the minivan was from the Yi minority group. Yunnan has the highest concentration of minority tribes and locals can easily distinguish one another’s ethnicity through their daily wear and I have foolishly all along thought everyone was from the Hani minority.
The Yi minority people’s costumes tend to be more colourful with more decorated patterns. One obvious giveaway would be to observe the back of the individual, Yi Minority people would have two highly decorated flaps whilst the cloth on Hani people’s backs are plain in comparison.
Another give away would be the hat. The Hani people don one colour head cloths whilst the Yi have brightly coloured hats. The Hani people don black caps only during formal events. When doing all things else, they would have blue cloth hat on.
The Hani lady on the van pointed out to me the different ethnic groups who walked past the van. 0907 hr.
The Hani lady could also speak the Yi ethnic tongue, in addition to Mandarin Chinese. Her family is Hani and she has learnt to speak its language since childhood and when she later married her husband who is a Yi minority, she learnt to speak their language. She has travelled to Hekou herself, speaking of the lychees Vietnamese vendors bring in across the border everyday which she and other Chinese vendors would buy to sell off in other areas of Yunnan. The trade between the Vietnamese and Chinese occurs as early as 0300 in the morning when Vietnese vendors cross into Hekou and return by 1230. “There are also Hani people in Vietnam!” she exclaimed. “They can speak the Hani language like us too! That’s how we know they are Hani people. But they have a different set of costume.” I found their local dialect quite interesting, some of the words can have totally different meaning when interpreted in Mandarin Chinese. Vietnam in Mandarin Chinese is known as Yue Nan （越南）and when she consistently mentioned Yun Nan （云南） which refers to the Yunnan Province in Mandarin Chinese, I had a hunch it was a “mispronunciation” when she described its border with Hekou (河口). She was referring to Vietnam although she had verbally communicated Yunnan Province. I would have a clearer understanding if I could understand the local dialect. She also mentioned their ethnic long table feast where each Hani family would provide food for one to two tables that line the street during their annual celebratory festival which usually takes place in mid January, a few days before Chinese New Year. Interestingly, only the women don traditional costumes, they wear it everywhere here, to work and to the market. The men in contrast don simpler, more casual outfits.
Just a few minutes away from the bus terminal, another driver stopped our minivan stopped in the middle of the road to ask for passengers heading to Nansha (南沙). I switched vehicles at 0908 after paying my first driver 15 yuan and waited for a bit as my second driver tried to gather more passengers for the journey to the bottom of the mountains where the new district Nansha (南沙) lies. The minivan rolled into Nansha(南沙) at 1000, I caught sight of bus to Hekou waiting at the roadside and again, before the minivan stopped, a lady asked ran up to ask if anyone was going to Hekou (河口). I got off and told her what I knew about a bus leaving for Hekou (河口) at 1130,it was only 1000 but I told her of the bus I saw just down the road and asked if I should buy tickets from the bus terminal which was just opposite us. “No no, no time for that!” she punched some numbers on her phone, presumably calling the driver of the bus to Hekou (河口) to wait for an extra passenger because in the next minute, she instructed me and told me to run to the bus. I tripped along the way on the cracked pavement, I did not fall but both my shoe and sock flew off one of my feet. Hurriedly, I put them back on and caight the bus, it wasn’t leaving just yet as one of its passengers had alighted to find a toilet. I paid the bus driver a fare of 50RMB and the bus left at 1002.
Nansha(南沙) Town. Rightmost: Abroad the transfer bus to Hekou.
We subsequently passed by a town called jinping 金平 at 1150 and to my absolute surprise, I spotted a Gong cha at a town close to Hekou at 1225!! Gongcha is a Bubble Tea chain that’s prominent back in Singapore and whilst I have seen Bubble Tea chains of varying brands across China, I have yet to see a Gong Cha store. Unfortunately, the bus passed by so quickly, I wasn’t able to take a photo of it
Note: The locals do not accept coins in this region so be wary when someone gives you back your change in coins.
I still craved the sweet juicy small oranges that made great snacks for sustenance and bought them along the way to the Hekou (河口). The average price of common fruits in China are 3kg of small oranges for 10 yuan, 1kg of apples for 4 yuan.
Stop for toilet break. Some of us decided to head to the fruit market opposite to get fresh produce. 1036 hr.
To reach Hekou (河口), we had to go through two police checkpoints (边境管理区) where those with passports are to alight the bus to register their entry into the border areas. There were three other French travellers on the bus, including myself who were travelling to Hekou (河口) for the purposes of crossing over to Vietnam. We reached Hekou at 1406, and as two of the French travellers had not gotten their Vietnamese visa, they decided to stay on a night in Hekou (河口) whilst I crossed over to Vietnam with the other traveller. She had been working in the Tourism Industry, managing hotel bookings for clients in Paris for 10 years and was taking a break, having spent two months in China and a plan to spend one month in Vietnam.
Police Checkpoint. 1243 hr.
Hekou is almost like a mini township in itself, with sheltered bus stops and malls complete in Chinese and Vietnamese signages. 1425 hr.
Hekou Border. 1427 hr. Left: China. Right: Vietnam
The overland border crossing process was extremely fast. Less than two minutes at Chinese immigration and I was on my way to Vietnam. Once we were done with Vietnamese immigration, we were in Lao Cai, where most travellers take a bus onward to Sapa.
This is also my first entrance into Vietnam!
My plan in Vietnam was to head towards Ha Giang Province and the French traveller was heading to Hanoi and whilst I already had Vietnmese Dong exchanged back at home, we needed to visit an ATM for her to withdraw some cash. A man immediately came up to us to offer a ride in his taxi and to be honest savvy backpackers would have avoided him but somehow we decided that we would go to the Lao Cai Bus Station to try to get tickets to Hanoi and Ha Giang and stop at an ATM en route. I actually did not need to go to the bus station, I already had my ticket to Ha Giang booked by a Hanoi based agency for the next day, all I needed to do was to get to my hotel in Lao Cai for the night. But I was curious about the bus ticket prices at the local bus station and I didn’t think I would want to be left in the lurch if I did not have any cash on myself. We hopped into the scam taxi after agreeing on a pay by meter basis. He stopped at an ATM as promised but the French traveller wasn’t able to withdraw any money from her card. In the meantime, I alighted to ask a customer service officer at the bank who spoke English the rough cost of going to the local bus station. 50,000 dong was her reply. We decided to try our luck at the local bus station, there should be ATMs in the vicinity and it was on the way to the local bus station when we began to notice vehicles overtaking us on the right. I glanced at the speedometer, our driver was driving at barely 50KM/h on a straight road. To make matters worse, numbers on the meter was appeared to be jumping every second. We did not know if the driver was being purposefully slow or if he was conforming to certain regulations we were unaware of but I decided I wasn’t having it. The local bus station we pulled up at had no ATMs. It was in the middle of nowhere, only accessible by vehicles. We had to pay our driver a grand 167,000 dong which honestly wasn’t much but I did not like the scam one bit. I pulled out a 100,000 note, handled it to him and pretended that I didn’t have any more money on me after that. It certainly wasn’t a very nice thing to do. We caused a bit of a commotion and a bus station employee came to us to help translate. He could speak Chinese and asked if we had any Chinese Yuan to pay the driver. The French lady gave the little she had which amounted to around 5RMB. I held on to my camera bag tight as the driver eyed it suspiciously. He eventually gave up and waved us goodbye with an “Ok, ok” and a smile, the 100,000 dong I paid was probably more than enough.
“There aren’t anymore buses to Ha Giang for today.” the Vietnamese bus employee told me in fluent Chinese after the driver had left. I never knew the Chinese name for Ha Giang until he mentioned it, it’s 河江. “It’s ok,” I replied. I knew it beforehand, having checked the timings online and was simply at the bus station to check the price. The ticket was between 120,000 to 200,000 dong, my agency had quoted me the higher end of the scale but that was alright, at least I was in the know. The French traveller bought her ticket to Hanoi with her credit card, we bade goodbye as she boarded her bus. “So what will you do?” the bus employee asked me. “I’ll get a ride to Lao Cai city.” “How are you going to do that when you don’t have any money on you?” he asked suspiciously. I inhaled sharply with a smile, I wanted to explain to him the circumstance but felt no impulse to do so. “How about I drive you to the nearest ATM on my motorbike?” he said. I shook my head, I did not need the ATM. I asked if there were any public buses to Lao Cai city to which he pointed out the public bus bay into the distance. Thanking him, I turned away, glad that he wasn’t asking how I was going to pay for the bus. The buses had signs all in Vietnamese which I couldn’t read. A few women gathered around me as I tried to look for the bus to the city, one of them offered a motorbike ride straight up to my hotel inLao Cai for 70,000 dong which I gladly took up, without much care about whether I was overcharged or not. I still had to find a shop to buy a local SIM as soon as possible.
For 125,000 dong (SGD$7), which is their price for a dormitory bed, Sen Trang Hotel provides toilet necessities and a towel towel which is not typical of hostel stays in China and Thailand. It seemed to be customary in Vietnam though. The dormitory itself was also clean and comfortable with curtains for privacy however I later paid 255,000 dong (SGD$13) more to upgrade to a twin room (they didn’t have single rooms) as they did not have female only dormitories. Sen Trang Hotel offers two types of twin room, one Superior and one Standard which is cheaper, they did not have any of the Standard Twin rooms left so they checked me into a Superior Room whilst paying the lower price of a Standard Twin. A Chinese man was staying in the dormitory that night and although he meant no harm, I knew I would not be at ease if I remained in the dormitory that night.
Sen trắng Dormitory in Vietnam. 1455 hr.
Khách sạn Sen trắng
66a An Dương Vương, Cốc Lếu
For local SIM, I got it easily at a shop near the hotel. I chose Viettel, having read online that it works well in the mountains of Ha Giang province. As usual I tried it out on my phone before leaving the shop and found that it didn’t work. The shop owner had thought I assumed the SIM card to call and charged an additional 70,000 dong to activate 4G data. He called the service hotline for me which I was grateful for as everything was in Vietnamese and even we ourselves found it hard to communicate with each other, making do with numbers scribbled on my notepad. As I left, he wrote 1G, and then 4G and then a 200, 000 dong on my notepad, I could not figure out what he meant but guessed that he might be asking for more payment for the 4G then already activated on my phone. I wasn’t too sure though and decided to “test” it by thanking him and leaving the shop. The shop owner did not attempt to stop me from leaving without the additional payment thus I assumed he was referring to something else. The SIM card I got served me well for my short week in Vietnam though what I was unaware of and was about to find out later is that it is only valid for 7 days. At around 1700, I walked around nearby restaurants and settled down at one with a large menu board on the wall that listed options in Vietnamese and its corresponding prices. I could only recognise the word Pho but I wasn’t sure of its Vietnamese pronunciation. I was sure I was pronouncing it all wrong so I tried to point at it and the waitress seemed to understand. Once my steaming bowl of Pho came, I paid 50,000 dong and was expecting a 15,000 dong change when the waiter who collected the money from me seemed to have no intention to return my change. Above the Pho I had ordered on the Menu was Dui Ga which was stated to be 50,000 dong. Could it be that the waitress had mistakenly taken the wrong order. The bowl in front of me looked like Pho though. I called for the waiter and asked for my change, in sign language, he seemed to indicate that I had ordered the 50,000 dong Dui Ga, instead of the 35,000 dong Pho Ga I intended to order. I decided to leave it as that, it did not matter anyway but a few moments later, the waiter returned me the 15,000 dong change. I am still unsure of the dish I had up till today.
I subsequently returned to Sen trắng Dormitory to upgrade my dormitory bed to a twin room as I was uncomfortable with the mixed dormitory option. 1606 hr.
First Meal in Vietnam. 1827 hr.
Similar to Yuanyang, the sun sets by 1800 in Lao Cai. The streets near the hotel are considerably well lit though and I spent some time shopping at a minimart after dark before returning to rest at the hotel.
1856 hr (GMT+08:00), thus in Vietnam, it is only 1756 hr (GMT +07:00) when the skies turned dark that day.
Note: Vietnam’s local time is one hour behind China at GMT+07:00 hr. The timestamp on my photos taken here in Lao Cai switched between GMT+07:00 hr and GMT+08:00 hr.