Hanoi to Nanning (396km)

Gia Lam Station, Hanoi

Just after 9pm  we were allowed onto the platform  and, after checking our passports and exchanging the ticket for a plastic card, I got to my berth. It is a Chinese train with layout very similar to the Vietnamese ones, but much cleaner, with carpet on the floors and smart curtains at the windows. I am sharing with two young and rather sullen Vietnamese guys. Their mother,  I assume, is in the next compartment and seems quite friendly. 2140 on the dot and we are off. The reason the Nanning train goes from Gia Lam station, rather than the main Hanoi station is that the Chinese train runs on standard gauge tracks, not the metre gauge used by Vietnam railways. From Gia Lam to the border the track is dual gauge allowing both the Chinese and Vietnamese trains to run along it. There are about 8-10 carriages but all of us, about 20 - 25,   are in Coach 1 behind the locomotive and the other coaches are locked off. The locomotive has a loud horn and the driver likes using it. Having been warned not to expect any buffet or refreshments, I took the precaution of buying some food for breakfast and beer for tonight. Enjoyed my beer watching the outskirts of Hanoi go by, after which there was nothing to see, got into my berth with clean sheet, bed roll and pillows and fell fast asleep.

Hanoi to Nanning Train

Hanoi to Nanning Train at Gia Lam Station

Net Curtains 

Where to put the horses? 

Just before 2 am we were woken up and a few minutes later stopped at the last Vietnamese station for immigration formalities. All the luggage has to come off which is a pain since Vietnam follows the French tradition of low platforms requiring 3 - 4 steep steps up to the train. In the tired looking, rather grimy,  yellow painted customs and immigration hall we first have to put all our luggage through an X-ray scanner, for what reason I can't imagine,   and then one of the four people in smart green uniforms with lots of gold sparkly decoration collects all our passports and tells us to wait. The officials then check though all the passports examining every page; again I have no idea what they are looking for. They seem to be giving a woman with a young boy a hard time calling her over several times and questioning her. The thought of being turned back and left to find your way back from this place in the early hours of the morning is not an appealing one. After about an hour they return the passports to us, duly stamped, and at 3.15 am the hooter goes and we  are off again.  Next stop China. About 15 minutes later Chinese immigration officials in a pale green uniform give us immigration forms to fill out and collect them about 20 minutes later with our passports. At 4.10 we arrive at the Chinese immigration station and off we get with all our luggage again under the watchful eye of soldiers in camouflage battle dress. Inside the new gleaming immigration and customs hall two of the "soldiers",  although I realise now they are police because it says so on their helmets, physically open and check bags, although they wave me through. Then back through another X-ray scanner under the rather bored eyes of three men in black uniforms, customs. At 4.35 we are allowed to get back onto the train and at 5.00 we get our passports back. It's beginning to get light. So a total of three hours to get across the border! More people doing the inspecting than there are people on the train. Can't make economic sense to run the service. I fell asleep before we started moving so not sure what time we left.

Woke up just after 6 to find the train going through a karst landscape with limestone masses jutting out of a rolling countryside. Not quite as spectacular as Guilin but not far off.

Scenery in Southern China 

 Arrived in Nanning about 1100. It has a smart new station where the height of the  platforms matches the trains and I can see two bullet trains parked at the next two platforms. Overhead electrification has obviously been installed recently.  Don't think the renovations are complete. Escalators from over ten platforms bring us to a wide walkway under the tracks but there is only one escalator up to the exit, resulting in massive crowding. Eventually reach the surface and try to get my bearings. 

Train in Nanning with matching platform height

Locomotive leaving the Train

Bullet Trains