Park Life

After 1 last day of last minute suit fittings, shopping and generally getting organized we were ready to jump on the train to Nanning China. Rocked up to the travel agent with all our gear only to be told that he had been trying to contact us for the last 5 days since we had paid and booked our train tickets to tell us that there were in fact no seats left... Not sure what steps he had taken to contact us since he did not have any details except our names, didn't know where we were staying, email address etc. We have our own suspicion that he took our money and completely forgot to book the tickets. Needless to say we were a little disappointed which we communicated to the travel agent in no uncertain terms. Cath tested his English comprehension skills, delivering a passionate and lengthy speech complete with illustrative body language on just how disappointed we were with the whole thing particuly since we had booked early to ensure our seats. I mentioned that we had flight connections in Nanning that we were now going to miss because we would now be delayed getting into Nanning by over 24 hrs, costing us hundreds of dollars. The travel agent informed us that he had thoughtfully booked us a bus instead the next day. I told him it was my birthday. He told me that the bus would take 8 hrs and left at 7.30 in the morning. We told him he would have to give us money for accommodation that night. He rang a mate and booked us into a dodgy motel with ply wood walls.

cards in the park

The bus to Nanning was good and uncrowded. Apart from watching the same episode of a Vietnamese program that we had been watching on every bus since Laos, we arrived at the border with China in good spirits (recovered from our dummy spit the night before) and happy to have moved on from Vietnam. China looked immediately different, more developed, better roads and generally more organised and modern looking. By the time we arrived at the Nanning bus terminal I was really quite impressed with the place. Waiting at the terminal we started chatting to another westerner from the bus, Dave. Dave was from New Zealand and traveling around Asia on his way to the UK as well. We all jumped into a taxi together and headed of to the Chaoyang Hotel (as recommended in the lonely planet). The room here are very reasonable. Cath and I have been having difficulty going back to the very basic rooms since our taste of luxury in Hanoi and once again have a reasonably room with bathroom, aircon and internet for 130 yen (about 18 Aus). Turns out the room choice was a good idea because for the last couple of days now Cath has been unwell and at least been able to relax in the room with a degree of comfort.

cath and si dancing

Nanning itself is awesome, a real surprise packet. It is a reasonably good looking city, clean, with wide streets, modern amenities, flash department stores, a river and plenty of parks which are constantly busy in a relaxed kind of fashion... Not at all what I expected. There is a big park near where we are staying which I have spent a fare bit of time just hanging out in. All day and all night there are groups of older people either playing cards, checkers, mahjong, etc. Even better are the large groups ballroom dancing on the open paved areas and dozens of pockets of musicians playing typically Chinese classical music just for their own enjoyment. The result is a big space seething with activity and acting as a kind of crèche for old people both day and night. Cath and I have had a dance in the park on the way to dinner. We had decided to try the specialty of the region, dog hotpot. Although we made a pretty good attempt at trying to find the K9 specialty, we settled for a cold beer and a meal in a restaurant where we had seen others eating what appeared to be a really interesting set of dishes that came out in a box partitioned into section for rice, meat, vegies etc. One thing that we now realise about Nanning (and probably the rest of China( is that absolutely no one speaks english. In fact as westerners we are still of novelty value and people spend a lot of time staring and giggling. Dinner was ordered thanks to an excellent picture by cath (see the photo) which accurately portrayed what we were wanted even after I had made several attempts at ordering that ended in confusion all round. Dinner was good and combined with a cold beer was a fine way to finish of my birthday. On the way back we enjoyed the park again, just sitting down and listening to the music (saxophones, violins, acoustic guitar, traditional Chinese instruments and operatic singing). Fantastic! Everyone was really friendly and there is just a really good vibe about the whole thing. Cath, Dave and myself recognise the park in Nanning as one of our very best travel experiences to date and all the better for being completely unexpected.

cath and si dancing 2

We all went out for dinner last night, deciding to stray a bit further a field from where we had been so far. We were looking for a restaurant / bar named in the lonely planet but either we were in the wrong part of town or it had moved. Ate at another really interesting looking place and entertained the staff with our attempts at ordering. We didnt even bother with the menus, instead by pointing to a few pictures up on one wall, flapping our arms around like chickens and a bit of squawking, we ended up with a whole chicken, soe soup and some really nice dumplings. Had a good laugh with the staff.

Today we booked flights to Xi'an in the north of China. We were contemplating training it but figured it might be nice before our epic train journey to fly and save some time (Nanning to Xi'an 35hr by train). We also went out exploring on the local transport in search of the Qingxiu Shan Scenic Area. Sat on the bus we worked out we had to catch for 30mins before it stopped and turned around bringing us to the conclusion that we had caught the bus in the wrong direction. Anyway, 30mns back to where we started and we were off in the right direction. The Scenic area was nice and the bus trip there showed us even more of Nanning which we still liked. Spent a couple of hours wandering around and feeding the masses of gold fish in the ponds before heading back to the hotel. Tonight I think we will head to the park, then to dinner and perhaps a drink and then back to the park. Its that good.

Dave and Cath feeding the fish

Leaving tomorrow morning for Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors and then to Beijing.

dinner drawings

feeding fish 1

feeding fish 2

nanning earth moving

Qingxiu 2

Qingxiu scenic area

si and dave

symphony in the park

violinist