A glimse of China

got the night train from hanoi at about 10pm, and got to the vietnamise customs at 2am, it was misty and the station was a very old building causing it to feel like the set from a WW2 filmgetting of the train involved walking onto another train track, it felt more like a train yard than a train station. everyone was walking in single file and the vietnamise army were staring silently as everyone walked into the office. everything whent smoothly. we got back on the train for another 20 minutes before we got to the chinese boarder. I expect it would be a really bad place to be if the chinese denied you access (it can happen even if you have a valid visa) as you cant get a visa for vietnam at the boarder so there is a very strange no mans land. in an airport you can just get a flight back home and most of the airportcounts as a nomans land so its not so bad.anyway, as we aproached china (we were going very slowly as we passed the line) you could see a fence with barbed wire stretching further than you could see (it was misty so you couldnt see much) and there were guards in towers with torches that resembled something from Metal Gear Solid.when we were in the chinese imigration center though it was surprisingly relaxed. some of the security were joking with eachother in the corner and another guy was sitting on a chair looking like he was bored to death and he was making the physical body movements to emphasise this.Visualy it had the look of a very modern airport customs, There was an X-ray machine that we were orderd to que behind, but after 10 minutes we were told we could just get back on the train (I assume the X-ray machine was broken). we got our pasports back on the train by the chinese security.
I arrived at nanning (as my map spells it, though some people call it namning) at about 7 in the morning, i booked a train straight to gouangzhou (spelling propably wrong cuz im tired az, more on that in the Hong Kong section later) but it was due to leave at 7 in the evening, it cost 10 pounds but it was a hard seat (other options were soft seat, hard bed and soft bed) because all other options were booked. I had heard about needing to bok train tickets in advance but i didnt have much abillity to bo0k this ticket before i got to the station. It was cold so i went out and bought a coat from the market. The shopping district was huge and there were thousands of people, it felt even more crowded than central bangkok. The one thing that stood out to me was the lack of foriners, thjousands of people were there but i only saw two other white people in the entire time i was there (and i'm fairly sure one of them was a native chinese albino).
The coat cost me 13 quid, it seemed like good quality and the difference in temprature it gave was impressive, most of the shops were all mid-high end and i got the coat from a very small market section. The coat blew my daily budget when combined with food and the train ticket but i guess its something i needed. I seem to be breaking my budget more and more frequently, but its all for stuff i think i need like transport and clothing.I do have enough money to spend a little more each day but im a little worried about japan as i want to be able to splash out a bit there and its one of, if not THE most expencive city in the world.
The night train with a hard seat was awfull, not so much because of the seat but more because of the other passangers. In our coach there were about 5 people playing conflicticting music on their phones all night, I think a few of them were gambeling and drinking, then there were guys (not official staff, just random guys) walking up and down the coaches trying to sell stuff to you like toothbrushes/books/noodles/books/bottles of brown stuff with foliage in it and chinese symbols all over the lable.I stayed in gouangzhou for even less time. I was a little stuck on how to get to hong kong though. Chinese trainstations (big cities might be ok like bejing) are almost impossible to use if you dont speak/read chinese. Every time i wanted a ticket i just pointed at the map with the location on it. the one time I found a member of staff who spoke (some very limited) english and asked him which train station i was at when i arived (there are about 4 in gouangzhou and all the symbols on the front of the station were in chinese)his responce was "No", he then closed the desk and walked away. I Origionaly intended to get the train to hongkong from gouangzhou but I found it too dificult. There was a bus station about 400 meters away (I found it after I took a walkabout looking for food) with some limited english on the signs. It didnt have a bus to hongkong, but it did have a bus to the closest chinese city so i took it. i figured the closer i get the easyer it will be to get across.I got to the next city and then got another bus to the boarder. The boarder crossing was fine other than the chinese pasport control guy didnt like my photo and went to get his superior. Though I'm still managing to get into every country so far, I think i will need a new pasport for my next trip.
At a glance China apears to be one huge construction site with very developed city centers. When you were traveling there were cranes in ever direction from right next to the train tracks all the way to the horizon. There were even a couple of storage yards for diggers and dump trucks with lines and lines of hundereds and hundereds of them. New flats seem to be what they are building. I remember watching a documentary about how the chinese goverment was moving people from rural villages into city appartments and this seems like it could be happening on a huge scale. I get this feeling because all around the appartment blocks is small patches of land that are being farmed. Lots of little spaces that are very small and arkward are being farmed. There was one stretch of about 500 meters along the side of the track where they were growing stuff and it was only about 1ft wide due to buildings on one side and the track on the other. To me this doesnt seem like the doings of someone who is used to city living.