Today, we spent most of the day travelling to what is the final country of our incredible adventure - China.

Our first bus left early and we were given free water on board, which is always good. We were the only westerners on board what was a busy bus, but luckily the hostess spoke just enough English to tell us that the rest stop was for 20 minutes on our way to the border! The border itself turned out to be one of the most elaborate of the trip. We got off the bus and were driven in an electric car to a desk to be stamped out of Vietnam before walking along a road for about half an kilometre and heading into a huge, concrete building that was completely deserted apart from our bus full of people - weird. After a short queue, the guard asked me where I was going in China and for how long, before stamping me in. Just as I was leaving the desk a row of push buttons lit up on the counter for me to rate the guard's service! As if anyone is going to be brave enough to push anything other than the smiley face 'excellent' button - I know I wasn't! When it was Laura's turn at the desk, the guard spent a long time closely examining her passport - he must have thought it looked like a fake! He must have been convinced in the end as she got her stamp and was let in the country! Then we had our bags scanned and our Lonely Planet China guidebook wasn't spotted and confiscated, despite what we'd heard otherwise. Then we were collected in our little golf buggy/electric car again and driven to a new bus, which was waiting in a huge car park. The complex also contained lots of other anonymous but important looking buildings, unlike any crossing we've seen before - it's usually just a few fellas in a booth with a barrier arm!

Once on board the new bus, we slowly headed out of the border area and, after a final stop where some smiling Chinese police officers got on board and checked our passports yet again, we were on our way to Nanning. We arrived at about 4:30pm at the bus station and managed to figure out which direction to walk in - we couldn't get a taxi as we didn't have any Chinese yuan!

The walk introduced us to how different China is to the other countries we've visited - the roads were incredibly wide and busy, it felt like we were wandering along a motorway for what seemed like ages. After about half an hour, we spotted the buildings where our hostel was - a huge, multi-storey apartment block - and headed there. There was no sign from the outside that our hostel was there and at first we couldn't get in. We had to wait for a woman who was coming out to open the door! Eventually we made it and we chose well - the staff are very friendly and the place is more like someone's apartment with comfy lounges and small but comfortable rooms.

After trying to sort out our flight nightmare (we need to send scans of all sorts of documents before they'll confirm the flights - a bit tricky without a printer or scanner!) we headed out following the receptionist's directions to try and find a bank. We had to cross the busy motorway again, and wander through some huge high-rise blocks, but we managed to find the Bank of China, which is the only one that will accept foreign cards. We also spotted a place called Lemongrass Restaurant, the first building we've seen with an English sign. We found that it had an English menu outside so we headed in. It turned out to be a Vietnamese and Cambodian restaurant (!) ran by a Chinese-Canadian guy, who'd returned to China four months ago to open this restaurant. He was the only person there who spoke English, although the staff were all eager to serve us and and seemed very intrigued by our presence. One of the waiters even seemed quite nervous; the manager told him to bring two glasses of ice as one of the beers we ordered hadn't been in the fridge and he spilled a glassful when he arrived at the table! Cue many apologies and a fresh glass of ice. The meal was excellent - meatball soup for Laura and beef with fried rice and egg for me, plus a huge plate of spring rolls and two Chinese beers - a good start to dining in China, even if it was Cambodian / Vietnamese food. The bill came to 120 yuan (£12) - a bit more than we're used to paying but we'd heard that China is more expensive than the rest of Asia.

We headed back to our hostel afterwards for a good night's sleep - it's been a long day!