(containes only 3(!) selfies!
Only 60km where to be done to Mong Cai, the last city in Vietnam, directly neighbouring DongXing and only separated by a small river.
I left my unfriendly host, but there were friendly guests. They were greeting and one of them saw my gold-coloured chain and thought it is rusty and brought me machine oil from his car to grease it ?
One of the for me yet unsolved riddles in Vietnam is the lot of small money you find on the streets but mainly on bridges. Some of them are folded and I picked one up and saw that salt was in it (at least I guess it was salt – I didn’t taste it). I guess it must be something about good luck, but wether the good luck should be that the bridge doesn’t break or if there are some gods in the river below who like small presents, I don’t know.
The way was hilly like yesterday for the first 50 km and then flat until the end. I made my (now) usual break at km45 and ate my (now) usual muesli when a motorcycle stopped. A man talked to me in quite good English, asking the usual questions but then, he showed me the big load of tea that he was bringing to MongCai. The tea was cheap, and I made a deal: If he would take the small money I still had, I would take two packages (for Taiwanese friends). He agreed and we both moved on to Mong Cai. When I arrived there, I wanted to buy Vietnamese small cakes for a last time with my last smaller bank notes (50000 dong), but the shop had no. And when I looked on the other side of the street, I saw another French bakery ?
The shop assistant helped me to select food for exactly 50k and now I had only the bigger notes left and wanted to change them in China.
In front of the border, I changed my active fairphone with VPN etc to the “spare part fairphone”, because the German Alex that I had met in Cambodia had told me stories about spyware they want to install at the border. I didn’t believe it anyway and also didn’t find information about that, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to be a naïve fool, too. Then I went to the border, made a selfie movie from the distance, because I thought, I would not be allowed to use the camera later, went through the Vietnamese check point and was in a loud crowd of people coming from or going to China, making selfies and taking pictures of each other. So, I dared to do the same.
Then I went to the Chinese border control, filled in a form, where I would stay, scanned all 10 fingers, brought my luggage to the scanner and put it on the bike after that. No one checked the remaining small bags on the bike (one with first aid things, the other with my phone) and so, I smoothly landed in China!
Mr.G brought me directly to the hotel without any problem and the first problem was the check-in there. No one spoke English or tried to use a translator, mine didn’t work well without internet and they wanted 500Y from me. The room should be 268Y, what is enough so I didn’t understand that and normally, you can at least check in before you pay. So I left the bike there with all my luggage and tried to get money.
The first ATM said my PIN is wrong (you need 6 digits but I have only 4) and I was prepared for new complications, but the next one gave me the money. No bank and no money exchange wanted to change my Vietnamese dongs, but for the moment, I just wanted to check in the hotel and then care for a SIM card.
In the hotel, they confirmed that 268Y is the price for the room and then, they took 300Y without giving me change, but a paper to sign. And then I could guess it was for the key deposit. But why didn’t the try to tell me that? Even in sign language that would be possible!
An officer had become “nervous” because of my bike at the entrance and he even hardly could tolerate that I wanted to take down the luggage, before I bring it to the parking, but I did it.
Next: SIM card…
In Vietnam, I had prepared some locations for a shop on the map and saved with a screenshot, and one was near-by. I was there for nearly 2 hours and in the end, when I left, the settings changed to 2G what is not enough for most things I could need, eg.voice translation, that we had used in the shop intensively. I knew before that I could be hard to get a good SIM card but that’s why I had chosen that company (there are three).
I went back to the border, because I hoped someone could need the VND, but maybe it was too late for the day,I only saw people arriving. So, I went to a shop with Vietnamese writing on it, and they took the money. Then I bought some street food and wanted to find another shop for a SIM card. I only found another shop of the same brand and prepared the translator with questions when a woman on a motorcycle started talking to me. I went nearer and saw that it was the shop assistant of the first shop!
It was a little embarrassing that she saw that I tried to get something better and she even came to assist me again and asked if I could use the SIM card although it has only 2G. Meanwhile, we had changed to WeChat, because then we could use our two phones for typing and then get the translation. After a while it was clear that nothing could be done except buying Chinese phone, but I don’t want to do that.
Ann, so her name, asked me if I would like to have dinner and so we went on her electric motorcycle to a restaurant. We continued our strange, written conversation until we had finished eating and my phone was empty. Then Ann brought me back to my hotel and went home. On the way, I had seen a market and now, I bought bananas. They tasted great!
For the moment, I can say, my first day in China could have been much worse, although I at the moment again struggle with internet access for the PC, and the SIM card is not very helpful and I don’t know about the performance of Mr.G when it is not only 500m from the border.