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Ann's Asia Experience
so we are now in Vietnam, Hanoi to be precise and i am loving it already. we have only been here a matter of hours and i am glad that we are now here and not in china anymore! we had a great day on thursday in yangshou despite the rain by going along the river on a bamboo raft then going caving in amongst the karst mountains. we hired bikes for the day but decided to be skinflints and get the cheapest ones we could so for about 35p we got bikes for the day which had no gears and when your cycling the terain we were that Ãs no good thing!! we went in some mud pools in the caves and got our pictures taken so i will upload thóse pictures ás sôon ás i get mỏe time on the computer. we left yangshou yesterday and had pre bought tickets for a sleeper bús from guilin to the china/vietnam border. however the agent that we bought them from said that we had to meet hẻr friend 'Jack' in Guilin ás he had the tickets (the alarm bells should have started ringing then!!!) when we got there the sleeper bús had convieniently broken dơn and 'Jack' suggested we get a bús to Nanning then another bús from Nanning to the border. he told ús that the bus to nanning would cost 130Yuan so he would give us the 70Y diference (as we paid 200Y) which would get ús the bus from manning to the border. we had really had it with this little sleazy rat by then so we siad to him ìf we go and ask at the ticket ofice will it actually be 130Y to nanning? he of course saiid yes so we went and asked anyway and it was actually 88Y so we stood our ground and got all our money back and then hotfooted it to the bús to Nanning which was due to leave in the next 5mÃns!!! we got to Nanning at 10pm and realised there was a bus all the way through to Hanoi but that the next one was at 8am!! we got on a random bus to try to find a hostel listed on the lonely planet page we had a photocopy of only to find that the page was out òf date and the 'budget' rốoms were nơw out of our cash limit and they didnt accept cards!!! it was nơw midnight and the buses back to the main bus station had finished running so we found a 24hour mcdonalds and sat in there all night. the staff thought we were mad but at least we felt safer than sitting in the bus stop!! the buses started running again at 5.30 am so we caught the 1st one we could back to the main station and got tickets to Hanoi. it took us less time than we expected to cross the border and get to Hanoi snd we got a free packed lunch on the bus!!! seeing ás though we had literally spent our last cash before we left china free food was very much appreciated!!! anyway we got here and an english speaking receptionist from a hotel took ús to a lovely place and we are nơw sorted for the next 2 nights before joining our intrepid tour and hopefully there will be some others to get to know. will upload photos hopefully tomorrow ỏr monday. love you all x x x x
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