Hanoi to Nanning to Guilin

I was really worried about today. I had to get a bus to China and wait until midnight for a train another city where I wanted to be. Making my way around a westerner free Chinese city on my own didn't sound appealing. I had asked for a wakeup call but when I got up under my own steam I found the hotel receptionist asleep in his futon under the desk. After nudging him a few times I just left the key at his feet and slipped out. Got a moto guy to the bus stop and found my bus waiting with lots of arguing Chinese outside. Middle aged guys with their trousers rolled up to their knees as improvised shorts and dress shoes to match. Constant shouting. They'd just start shouting at each other for no apparent reason. No westerners in site. I threw my bag on and squeezed onto one of the last remaining seats. Just before leaving I heaved a sigh of relief I when I saw two western guys get on, but the scowls they gave everyone may them look scarier than the Chinese. The bus to the border was uneventful and the scenery pretty nice. We got a snack of strange beans in a can of syrup (I was saving my for later but then lost it somewhere) and arrived at the border a few hours later. Of course we were dumped at the border and given no directions as to what to do. So twenty minutes later I was shoving my passport in the face of some guy behind a desk to get stamped along with everyone else shouting at the guy. Eventually got an electric cart to the Chinese border, paid some tiny border fee, and made my way into a border point that looked more like an airport than anything else. No forms in English, I had to guess what to write down and obviously so did some Vietnamese because they ended up copying what I wrote! The bus from the Chinese border was much nicer, as were the roads. One of the westerners sat down beside me and turned out to be a not so scary Italian travelling with his brother around asia after having working in Australia for six months. They'd been doing fruit picking though and thought it was pretty tough. He found out I was going to try and go to Guilin straight from Nanning and decided it was such a good idea that they'd follow me. Slightly disappointing as I'd been hoping to find someone to follow myself. We pulled in at 4.30pm to Nanning and I had the idea of checking if there was a bus to Guilin (instead of having to wait for a train). Walked to the ticket counter where we found out there was a bus to Guilin at 4.45. I'd enough RMB but the Italian lads only had dollars so we all raced off in different directions to try and change some money, but I had no luck and I guess they didn't either. I got on the bus without them but glad not to be hanging around 10km out of the city centre. The journey was another 4.5 hours with thankfully my MP3 to keep me company. When I arrived in Guilin after 9pm I could taste the metal in the air. But this was the moment I'd been dreading - a tiny compass and tiny guidebook (photocopied) map, new city, dark, only Chinese signs everywhere. I brushed away the pushy taxi drivers as best I could and walked for ages with my pack; judging by the looks I got it wasn't something people were used to seeing. Guilin was much less touristy that I'd hoped - or rather, much less set up for Westerners. I walked as far as the train station and across a busy junction and down an alley that looked like something from Ballymun and found the hostel I had been looking for on the second floor. It was a welcoming enough place, the staff were nice and ultimately I was just glad to have somewhere to put my head. I paid 55RMB for the tiny frinkahedron shaped room with my bed. As I headed out for something to eat the staff lady told me to be careful because it was dangerous outside. I didn't need to hear that.