The Indian Contractor visits Vietnam and China on a Shoestring

And Voila! we were in China! Our two car train first stopped at Nanning. It was to be shunted here for 2 hours and we were asked to dismount the train with only our valuables. We were directed to a waiting room and allowed to leave with a temporary pass. We were given strict instructions to be back by 0915 hours. It was only 0800am. John, Alison and my companion were hungry so we went food hunting at Nanning with only my companion who had the local currency and lingo. I was too groggy to remember the exact happenings of that morning but I do remember that the three of my friends had a soya bean porridge and some fried kuey (flour) for breakfast. Coffee was unheard of here so I chose to starve. I was too sleepy to eat. We came back to the station after breakfast and saw that our train had become longer. Much longer.

We reboarded our train and we were moving at speeds well above 100km/h. Our train had a top speed of 160km/h. Impressive. We got on board. I fell asleep.

Woke up at 1130.Saw john and alison writing. Dozed off.

Woke up at 12. Saw john reading and alison writing. Dozed off.

Woke up once and for all at 1300hrs.

I brushed my teeth and munched on a few crackers. While doing so the guy from the next cabin came over and enquired about the location of the restaurant car. Alison showed him the way, and I told him not to bother as it was packed to capacity. And thus the newest member of our talking gang came into the picture.

He was Canadian(cant remember his name though) and had been working in Japan for a few years (teaching English I think). He lived in the city close to the Canadian half of Niagra falls(Sorry, cant remember the name of that either).
It started off traditonally with the "exchange" of travel plans. And his plans were way grander than ours. He was going to Moscow from Beijing by train!

And once the verbal and national boundaries were eroded, the cabin was a UN convention, complete with the head- shaking Indian man!

Just about everything from Bush's botch ups to Vietnamese industriousness was discussed. We did not stop talking until we reached one of the stations 4 hours later at 1830 hours. And the stop was only to buy food and drink. I bought some pears and peaches as nothing vegetarian was available.

While munching on the fruits and gobbling up two packets of instant noodles, we discussed asia's conservative outlook on relationships and sex education and how it differed markedly from that of Canada. The chat went on till midnight. And just as unexpectedly we started the talk, it ended. I was dreading a quiet three day journey by train, but thanks to John, Alicia, my buddy and the Canadian the journey was fun.