Traveling in China Part IX: Crossing the border to the ancient Vietnamese city of Hanoi - Original Work

Carrying on from our incredible stay in Yangdi village we made our way back to the city where we immediately got scammed for our breakfast, then headed to the train station in order to make our way to Naning.

After a while of waiting we noticed that our train number said delayed on the big board, so we asked around and eventually found someone who spoke a touch of english. After about fifteen minutes of back and forth an official train station person came up and started speaking with us. She let us know that the train would be delayed probably 12 hours! Well it was only going to be like a 3 hour train ride and she told us we could go to the ticket counter and get a full refund, then take a bus, so we headed downstairs.

By the time we got down there people were straight FREAKING out. Like dudes jumping up on the ticket counter bashing on the glass freaking out. Like military kitted out cops rushing in with machine guns freaking out. I rushed for the shortest looking line and we just stood there hoping we could get this over with before something crazy happened, and I told Sabrina "I don't even care if they give us a full refund, I'm just gonna take whatever she gives me and lets jet". She agreed and soon we were out of that mess with all of our money back, a nice surprise.

On our way to the bus station I got pick pocketted for my phone, but I was so wrapped up in looking at the map and trying to get to the place I didn't even notice until I heard Sabrina yelling my name from about 15 feet behind me. I spun around to see my 4 foot 11 inch tall wife holding this tall, lanky chinese man by the collar of his jacket yelling "WHAT DID YOU TAKE??!! WHAT DID YOU TAKE??!!" I immediately ran towards the scene and the man simply held out his hand to me. Not a word of a lie, my first thought was "How does he have the exact same phone and headphones as me??" Hahahaha. Sabrina had seen him grab something out of my jacket pocket and was having none of it, then when I came around he knew the jig was up, he just gave me my stuff back and slinked away into the crowd. Sabrina is my hero but really I'm just super glad she didnt get stabbed or something.

After making it to the bus station and getting ripped off by them too (they had figured out by this point that the train wasn't running and jacked the bus prices accordingly) we were on our way to Naning, where we would spend a few days to get our Vietnamese visas and head out of China.

We arrived in Naning and spent the next few days chilling out and doing some street photography.

This was the last picture I took in China, we were on our way to the bus station and I got this shot just before I decided to pack up my camera.

We didn't really get any photos crossing the border since it was pretty busy and sometimes they are picky about taking photos in those types of places, but eventually we arrived in Hanoi in the evening. We checked into our hotel and immediately went out for a beer. Vietnam is MUCH cheaper than China so we were loving it, but then we crashed pretty hard. We woke up the next morning and started exploring one of my favorite cities I have ever been to.

This was the first photo I got the morning we woke up in Hanoi, from the balcony of our hotel in the famous old quarter.

It was called Stars Hotel. We decided to splurge and go with the $12 per night hotel, it's nothing fancy but has free breakfast, great location, safe, clean, and a good night's sleep!

A young girl across the street doing pretty much the same thing as me. It was a really beautiful morning.

More shots from the balcony. Industrious ladies off to the market.

We headed out after breakfast and started exploring. You would think this was in the middle of a jungle somewhere, but it's actually in the middle of the city.

We made our way down to the lake where folks were relaxing, it's a very peaceful place.

Sitting in front of the lake.

We came across this couple getting pre wedding photos done.

They were hitting up all the cool spots like us, haha.

We continued wandering around and exploring the old quarter.

Not sure what all these numbers meant but this old wall sure looked cool.

A common theme of Vietnam are these extremely hard working ladies. They spend the whole day hauling these yokes around, and they are seriously tough as nails. I loved photographing them.

"Dreams come true YELL" Whatever that means, hahaha.

An old school pedal rickshaw, we never rode one but it seemed like a really nice chill way to get around the city.

So that was the end of our travels in China, and the first day of our travels in Vietnam. The Traveling in China series if officially shifting to the Traveling In Vietnam series! I hope you enjoyed our last sights of China and as always if you like the post feel free to throw me an up vote, you know I always appreciate them! Be sure to follow me @dexter-k on Steemit to keep up with all of our travels and see new original content all the time.

Thanks for reading!

Dexter