Well it was a bit of a journey from Yangshuo to
finally arrive her in Hanoi Vietnam.  Actually, I
arrived days ago, Wednesday the 13th to be exact. 
I'll save the Vietnam details for another note though.

In summary:
-----------

Left Yangshuo after 3 days of relaxation and headed to
Nanning.  Found the Vietnam visa situation there to be
less than desirable, but on the advice of my Nepali
roomate, I backtracked 15 hours to Guangxshou after
the weekend and obtained my visa in 1 day.  Not before
doing so, I found a guitar bar and had some nice
converstation and even made an impromptu appearance on
stage to play a couple songs on the guitar.  I ran
around Guangxshou with an American I met there.  And
finally on Tuesday the 12th I spent 28 hours plodding
my way to Hanoi.  Now I am enjoying my time in Vietnam
and will reagale you with the details in due time.

The long and short of it all:
-----------------------------

Anywho, I left Yangshuo on the 8th and took the 15
hour train ride to Nanning which is close to the
China-Vietnam border.  Of course I took the overnight
train in a straight back hard seat!  I am not sure if
it is because I am becoming more of a miser everyday
or if I am just a masochist.

I arrived and was met by a local student eager to
practice english and so I didn't mind chatting along
the way to the hotel.  He was helpful and friendly and
so he came along while I ran some errands and finally
had dinner.

The next morning I awoke early and scrambled to look
into the possibilities of getting a visa in Nanning or
the border.  Of course it was Saturday and I was
feeling like a bit of a dunce for my patheticly poor
planning.  After some useless efforts I returned to my
hotel room and found that the best resource for all of
my questions was to be had from my roomate.  

In fact, Dingri came from Nepal and has spent 2 years
travelling all over China and Vietnam and had spent
the last 2 months living in Nanning over the course of
which numerous pathetic travellers like myself came to
know him and find enlightenment from this fountain of
knowledge.  So I now understood that my best option
was to backtrack 15 hours by train to Guangxshou and
obtain my Vietnam visa in 1 day and then return back
to Nanning and on into Vietnam.  Of course Dingri knew
the trains to take, the times, the costs of everything
and even the new address of the consulate in
Guangxshou (Sorry Dingri, I should have trusted your
advice over the out of date Guidebooks!).  Being the
weekend I decided to stay Saturday night in Nanning
and enjoy the weekend and then head to Guangxshou on
Sunday the 10th.

So Dingri and I had lunch at his regular place
($0.50!) and we walked around town for the afternoon.

Nanning is a bustling city that is not quite as modern
or grown up as some cities and without the forests of
huge highrise apartments and office buildings.  I
explored the streets, the park, the markets, and just
about anywhere I could walk.  Mostly everyplace looked
about the same, just with different shops along the
street.  There was not a single other foreigner to be
found in the city though.  I got plenty of stares and
funny looks.  I've grown quite acustomed to that
though.

During the evening I managed to run into a British
English teacher who pointed me to a guitar bar where I
camped out for the night.  Unfortunately the musicians
finished just after I arrived!  So I spoke with the
bartender and a local student, Sandy, for the rest of
the evening.  They even coaxed me into playing a few
songs on guitar up on stage.  

Sunday I headed for Guangxshou on another 15 hour ride
in a hard seat.  The trains are usually hot, humid,
and devoid of anyone that can say more than 5 words in
English.  Although, occasionally somebody will walk
by, sit down, and ask you to converse with them and
practice their English.

In Guangxshou I was able to get my visa in 1 day
thankfully and by 4pm had it in my hot little hand. 
It was too late to catch the train back and I was way
to weary for it anyways so I spent the night in a
hotel dorm room.  

Guangxshou is a big city with plenty of modern
buildings and also some market streets that seem to
transport you back many years.  Many hotels are
located on Samian Island which is really just a piece
of land next to the river with a moat around the other
sides.  This is where all the foreigners stayed in
days of old and seems to have remained the case.

Tosh is a Japanese/American living in the dorm I met
that day and we headed out to explore the town.  This
involved miles of wandering aimlessly.  The old market
streets alongside Samian I thought were the most
interesting.  Here you could walk past shops selling
all sorts of ancient Chinese medicinal products and
even plastic vats containing literally thousand of
live scorpions crawling all over one another.  Along
the next street you may find vats of thousands of eels
or boxes with hundreds of live turtles similarly
displayed at all the stores running down the street. 
Supposedly there are places with dogs and cats in
cages amonst the other small animals waiting to become
somebodies meal!  Yes, dog is eaten in some places,
even in Korea and Vietnam, but it is not really common
and I have yet to eat some myself.

The next day, Tuesday the 12th, my long journey to
Vietnam commenced.  I caught the afternoon train on to
Nanning and suffered the 15 hours in a seat again. 
Directly afterwards I caught a 5 hour bus ride to the
border at Xingpiang where I took a motorcycle rickshaw
to the border and quite easily passed through the
Chinese and Vietnamese border crossings.  Afterwards I
took a 20 minute taxi ride to Longsang in Vietnam
where I was hustled onto a waiting minibus.

At this point I was quite hungry although over the
past 24 hours I had managed to scrape up some noodles
and other fare, but the bus seemed ready to go so I
sucked it up till I made the 2 hour journey to Hanoi. 
So shortly after the full bus took off and I was happy
to be going, but was quickly disappointed when the bus
drove around the block honking 5,000 times to find new
riders and then returned to the starting place.  This
routine continued every 5 minutes for 2 HOURS!  By the
time we finally left I was ready to have somebodies
head.  Another 3 hours and we finally arrived in Hanoi
in the early evening and I managed to quickly find a
decent hotel for $5 a night and quickly showered,
changed clothes, and sought food.

Since this has become quite a long missive, I will
leave the rest for next time and allow you to return
to your previous engagements.  

My best to everyone reading.  Also I was sorry to hear
of the flooding in Houston.  I hope it hasn't effected
my friends there to terribly.  You are all in my
thoughts.

-Chris