The Indian Contractor visits Vietnam and China on a Shoestring

At Dong Dang, we were asked to remove everything from the train. We took our stuff and went into the station. We surrendered our passport at the counter to clear Vietnamese Immigration. It involved a half an hour wait. Then the officer at the counter called out individuals to stamp the passport. This process was slower because the officer had problems calling out the names of the people of different nationalities. My twenty letter name was no exception. He had hardly reached half way and I jumped in front of the counter and saved him the trouble. He looked at me, I pulled out my bandana. He looked at me again, I held my hair in a pony tail and asked him to turn the page of my passport for the updated photo. "Ah" he said and smiled at me and returned my passport. I waited for my friends to get their passport and together we waited for the train. The train was changed to a broad guage train that would take us to Beijing.

After a while we boarded the new train,which was much much better than the Vietnamese train. It had a thicker mattress, had running hot water and a carpeted floor. The vietnamese train attendant asked me one last time if I wanted to change my VND to Chinese RMB (Ren Min Bi/ peoples money) I regretfully refused thinking I could change it in Beijing for a better rate. I would only change it in Singapore! We got aboard, wished everyone goodnight and knocked off.

Hardly a minute later a Chinese immigration staff came and knocked the door and asked us for our passports. We handed it over. They said they would be back shortly. In the mean time we filled up the immigration and quarantine forms. They came back much later and this time they were three in number. All were gleaning through my passport like it was coated with gold. They flipped through the pages, rechecked the photos and made sure they were seeing a dark skinned singaporean. They started talking to me in Chinese and I told them I don't understand in Chinese (Wo Bu ming bai ler!). At which they turned to my companion who was a Singaporean Chinese. My life history was blurted out and the racial make up of Singapore was explained in Chinese at which the officers gave an enlightened smile. My educational status and photographic pursuits were clearly mentioned and so was my Indian ancestry at which they seemed a bit more convinced. They then turned to me and asked me if I knew chinese. I replied no and told them thats why I had my Singaorean Chinese friend with me. They then returned my passport and left. Phew...

It was a well deserved sleep after that.