Traveling in China - Day 10 - Vietnam Border

In the morning, we packed our bags and started walking to the bus station. Our next stop was going to be to a city near the Vietnam border called Pingxiang.


View Peak Fort In Longzhou in a larger map

Before we got to the bus station, we saw the bus that we needed to take already leaving, so we had it stopped in the middle of the street and got on. At this point the bus was already almost completely full and we all had quite a bit of luggage. Yay.

It was another gorgeous (crowded) bus ride that took about an hour and a half. Once we got to Pingxiang, we took a tricycle to the train station to get some train tickets for the next day. We again chose the first hotel we could find and got settled in with all our stuff. Once we had settled in for a bit we decided that we would go to Vietnam.

We spent some time trying to find a taxi driver who did not have another guy in there smoking. After about 15 minutes of looking we just decided to go with that first driver (after the guy finished his cigarette). It was ¥10 ($1.60) for each of us to go in the taxi and took about 20 minutes to get to the border.

We went with Serena because she wanted to see Vietnam. The entire trip, she had given us different information regarding the trip (like suggesting there was one day a year that Chinese could enter Vietnam without a passport, or something like that). Once we actually got to the border, we got out and kind of waited for Serena to lead the way... it was very soon apparent that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. We went to a couple buildings that were basically tourist shops. She eventually told us that she didn't even have her passport, to which we realized that we really would not be able to leave the country without leaving her behind. We realized that it was just not going to happen. We walked around and saw a gate that led to a tourist spot where the actual border was, and various other points of interest. It was more money than any of us cared to spend, but we really did not want to just turn around and go home since we dedicated an entire day to this. After standing around for about 20 minutes doing basically nothing, Jerry suggested that we just start walking. Sounded like a good idea. We walked in the opposite direction of the tourist trap to see where it would lead us.

Eventually we found a place with some sort of memorial with hundreds of stairs to walk up. Who doesn't want to walk up stairs? We got to the top and saw the memorial... it was basically a concrete slab. Maybe it would have been interesting if we could read Chinese. At any rate, we saw a handful of people walking off to a trail on the side. Since we had nothing better to do, we decided to follow it. Turns out that the trail was a beautiful hiking trail going through a forest of trees and plants. It ended up being by far my favorite hike in China.

Most of the trail looked very similar to this. Moss on all of the rocks, trees and shrubbery growing everywhere. It was very lovely. You couldn't even really look out of the trees too far to see all of the pollution.

The entire hike was on rock/concrete slabs and steps. It was a fairly easy hike. There were quite a few more people on the hike and after talking to and overhearing many of them speaking, it became apparent that the trail led up to the same place we could have gone to had we paid the money for the tourist trap. We thought it quite odd that they would build a free trail that went to the same place that you had to pay money for, but didn't think of it too much until we came across two guys wearing black and carrying radios. They stopped the group directly ahead of us. It seemed that they were asking for tickets to get in. I think a few of the people in front of us might have had tickets, but most did not.

When we finally got up to the guys, they stopped us and said that we needed to show them our tickets, or we could pay them something like ¥50 to get in. We told them that we didn't have tickets. We talked among ourselves and came to the conclusion that the guys seemed pretty sketchy. I think Jerry joked when we first got up there that it just looked like two school kids who got radios. When we were actually talking to them, that seemed more like reality than a joke. I asked if we would get tickets if we payed and they said they only had two (seems like it was just their personal tickets). Still; it was hard to tell for sure if they were legit or not. We had hiked quite a long way and didn't exactly want to just turn around at that point. We started discussing what we should do and thought that perhaps we could offer them ¥30 and see if they would accept that. Just as we were about to offer them that amount, they just got fed up and told us to go past. Good thing they could not understand what we were talking about.

Just after that point, we came to a place that met up with the main trail (that we assumed led back to the tourist trap). There was a small fort and signs that led to another tourist spot. Everyone seemed to be going there so we decided to follow.

Serena, Loida and myself at some sort of fort

I took this picture to show the Chinese mentality for many things. I think in America if I saw a girl hiking in heels, with a purse and wearing a skirt, I would find it very weird and unusual. In China this is normal.

We continued on walking up gigantic stairs. On the way down, some guy walked past us and in Chinese, jokingly said to his friends that foreigners could not go up there. I thought it was really weird and had no idea what he was saying until we came across a sign that said "Not people of China mainland, stop here and back down please!" OK. Now what the guy said made more sense.

Loida can usually pass for being Chinese if she needs to. Me and Jerry have to try a lot harder.

I am not sure what the sign says in Chinese. Probably something like "If you want to go to a place free of any foreigners, please keep going."

Jerry proudly holding the sign asking him to back down. Not all that often you get a sign asking you specifically to back down.

Me with my disappointed sad face.

Jerry and Serena were already ahead of us; they didn't see the sign (the photos were taken on the way down). When we caught up to them and explained the sign, we were already near the top near whatever it was we were going to. I should also mention that if you don't want foreigners to be curious about something, you probably should not post a sign asking them to back down. We thought it was weird that the sign was at the end of the trail and not the beginning.

After trudging through some mud, we got to a place that had a more authentic (and less broken) sign. I was going to take a picture of it, but it explicitly said not to take pictures. If I can recall correctly, the sign said the following (in broken English of course):

• Foreigners must not enter but should turn around and go back now.
• Photography of any kind is prohibited. You will be monitored.
• No wearing of shorts and relaxing clothing (good thing the entire trip was cold so I did not wear my shorts that day. I would have felt REALLY out of place).
• No shouting or talking loudly.

Serena entered because she IS from the China mainland. She told us she would find out what was going on. We waited by the entrance. I could see that there was a basketball court and some buildings. The smog made it even more mysterious. To me it looked like some school of sorts, but our vision was limited because of the vegetation. 

Eventually we saw someone walking toward us in uniform (unlike the boys before with radios, this man actually did look legit). We were pretty nervous and started walking away. We hadn't really seen anything like this in China before. I decided since the man obviously had seen us, I would just talk to him. I turned around and walked to talk to him. I explained that we were waiting for a friend. He told us that we could not go in. I said that I understood and asked him if it was ok to wait where we were for our friend. The officer was quite nice and said that would be fine. During this time, there were plenty of people coming and going (and they definitely gave us some looks). I also found a couple times where people would take pictures, and the officers would go up to them and confiscate their cameras until they deleted the photos.

We were not sure what was taking Serena so long but eventually we had many more officers coming to look at us. Eventually there was an entire herd of officers basically just looking at us. Most of them seemed young (about 20 years old) and seemed to be looking at us out of curiosity more than preventive measures for us entering. We talked to most of them and just explained that we were waiting. After talking to them we realized that it was some sort of army base with a functioning fortress of sorts. Very interesting. Serena still had not returned after about 20 minutes (they took her prisoner perhaps). An older, very official looking general of sorts eventually came to talk to us. He tried to have one of his soldiers talk to us but the soldier said he could not speak English. At this point we just talked to the general and explained what we were doing. He was very kind but told us that we were too close and he had us move further down the trail. He told us that he would inform our friend where we were.

This is a picture very near the army base where we were.

Cute Chinese girl who posed for us while we were waiting for Serena to get back

dddd

View Forbidden Fort in a larger map

Here is a map of the hike that we did. Unfortunately, the satellite imagery does not show anything exciting. Eventually Serena caught up with us and we headed back down the mountain.

Showing my love for ficus trees

Another picture of the trail

After hiking, we went back to our apartment, then later that night went out to eat dinner. In the process, we found a night market and tried new food there for the rest of the evening.

The hotel here was easily the nicest hotel we stayed in during the trip; it had one problem though. The bathroom was entirely glass. It was smoked glass, but still... who really wants to see the silhouette of someone going to the bathroom? Apparently not us; we put up the sheet for some additional privacy.

Please make sure you park appropriately.

We saw a bunch of movies like this that really confused me. What movie is this? "James Bond Dies Hard in 24 Hours?" Eventually we realized that it was multiple movies put on the same DVD.

WARNING:
The some of the following pictures will contain pictures of what some Chinese people consider to be food. This food may or may not look delicious. I am not responsible for your upsetness if you see something that looks unappetizing. If you are squeamish, you may want to not look at some of these pictures.

The first place I stopped was to get some papaya milk. Not as good as in Taiwan.

If you are not in France, do you still call it escargot? 

These places are pretty common. BBQ meat on a stick.

I was told by Loida that the orange balls are eggs that were taken from a chicken before they hatched. I can only assume that the other things are different parts of a chicken.

I think I see some brains in there. (No really... on the top, second from the left... those look like brains to me)

Brings new meaning to the song "How much is that doggy in the window."

If I had room in my backpack, I would have bought this for my sister Brooke. (Sorry Brooke, I didn't)

Loida bought this egg. She explained that it is a cooked duck before it has hatched. Apparently the yolk is very good. Um. No. No it is not.