Nanning: 2nd October

Our trip from Hong Kong to Hanoi in Vietnam has so far been our longest journey - it involved us having to cross the border back into China and then catching a coach and train through another border crossing to get into Vietnam.

When we got to our first checkpoint city of Guangzhou we were met by the travel agents who informed us that we were due to transfer to our new sleeper bus. As we waited patiently for this wonder bus, that we were told would have nice comfortable beds and facilities, what can only be described as a mini-van on steroids pulled up and everyone began nervously looking at each other thinking "are we seriously going to be sleeping on this for over 12 hours?".

Thankfully this was just the intermediate transport to bring us to the actual sleeper bus however, not to break with tradition, the Chinese contingent of passengers pushed in front of us and grabbed all of the seats and meant we were forced to walk across the main road to the sleeper bus instead.

We eventually arrived at the bus and tried to get ourselves as settled as possible but what we initially thought would be an 'ok' journey turned out to be anything but. I think we had a good case to sue them for unlawful advertising as these so called "comfortable beds" were only really catered for Asian people who tend to be a lot smaller than your average Westerner - so basically if you are any taller than 5ft and wider than a 10yr old child then this is not for you!!!!!!

When we arrived in Nanning our next challenge was to get to the train station to purchase our onward ticket to Vietnam. Thankfully there was an English girl on the bus who spoke Chinese and was able to point us and another three westerners (Max from France, Linda & Nina from Sweden) who were doing the same journey as us in the right direction. We therefore all travelled together - safety in numbers - and when we eventually got to the train station, Sean went to buy the train tickets with Max, Linda & Nina whilst Liza "Rottweiler" Murphy stood guard over everyone's luggage - no better woman!

Given we were leaving China there was an element of immigration to be completed but even so it must have taken around 100 questions and over 30 minutes for the train guy to actually prepare the paperwork (at one stage we were waiting for him to ask for our inside leg measurements) and when he eventually did finish we were all on the same ticket with Max as the lead passenger and meant he had now become our best friend - well he did have our way out of China!

Our train wasn't due to leave until 18:30 in the evening and meant we had quite a few hours to kill so the five of us went out to get some lunch and beers. Whilst the girls and us played safe and went for pizza, Max decided on a hot dog - a risky move given we were still in China and the fact that it looked like it was just a kiss of life away from wagging its tail and barking again.

However Max seemed to be the adventurous type and had a penchant for trying lots of different foods and on our way back to the train station he bought some sort of sweet drink that was a weird white goo in a dolphin shaped container and preceded to force everyone into trying some. We were certain it was some form of dodgy but (due to peer pressure) we just held our noses and drank it - although it wasn't the worst thing we have ever tasted we weren't exactly queuing up for seconds!!!

To be honest Nanning was pretty dull but we had a good laugh and passed the time by drinking and decided that this should continue on the train so bought an extra few beers for the journey. When we got onto the train there were only two other people booked into the whole carriage and therefore meant we were able to spread out and have our own compartment however we did end up spending most of our time in the one cabin playing drinking games, singing and dancing. When we eventually ran out of beer we went to the food and drinks carriage and bought more… and then some more and more until after our third visit the lady told us that we had drank them all and they had none left, oops!!!

By this point, Liza was starting to feel really tired and went into another cabin to "rest her eyes" for a couple of moments which turned into a full blown sleep. Unfortunately it was not to be a good nights sleep as she was awoken at around midnight by guards and we were all frog marched off the train to complete immigration out of China.

There was one funny moment when the guards were examining Liza's passport and seemed to be confused that she had an Irish passport but the place of birth read London. When asked 'where did you come from' - she politely responded 'China'. This was not the answer they were looking for and they kept asking - 'where did you come from, where did you come from'. After listing off every city we had visited during the past month we eventually realised their confusion and tried to explain however by then they had given up and walked away!!

After getting back on the train we thought that was it for the night so Liza went back to bed whilst Sean stayed up with the rest of the gang watching Slumdog Millionaire only for the train to stop again an hour later and the some more guards telling us that we needed to leave the train again for immigration at Vietnam.

Let's just say that Liza is not the most cheerful of souls when being woken up - especially not for the second time in one night and at 1:30 in the morning - so at this stage Sean was dreading waking her. However after eventually plucking up the courage we all got off and completed immigration with little incident, although at one stage Liza was getting frustrated with the length of time it was taking to complete and looked as if she was literally trying to kill the Vietnamese guard with her evil stare!!

We did eventually arrive in Hanoi with no further stops and the five of us made our way to the centre to try and find a hostel.