So hard to buy ticket from Hanoi to Nanning

 Today Hanoi weather turn cold suddenly. It drops from morning 30 degree to 22 degree. No sunlight and cloudy with light rain showering 90%. We heard from Tracy that it was due to middle Vietnam storm and will last 2 days before weather getting back to usual.

Today is quite frustrating with the only task we set for the day. The booking of bus ticket from Hanoi to Nanning cost 800k per person from APAC Travel 55 Tran Khat Chan street. As we are informed that the train servicing to Nanning had been suspended for a long time and the only way to Nanning will be taking bus. We was directed to pay online for the bus ticket and we decided to ride down to office to pay in cash as we are very sensitive to online payment from unknown source. We went to at 12 and was inform that they are out for lunch till 2pm. So we went to eat lunch and wait till 2pm and they are still closed. Tracy then helped us to call the owner and we are told that Sunday they do not open. WTH.

So we basically wasted a lot of time and we decided to meet Tracy earlier to return her bike to her. Then Tracy convinced us to not book for the tour agency and will instead take private bus to the custom of Vietnam for 300k each and then we clear customer and take a taxi or bus to Nanning. 

As we know that we are not going to get a China phone number that mean that we are confine to a lot of restriction in China. Most payment, taxi hailing and hotel booking will need us to use WeChat and need us to get OTP from a registered China line and no we now no longer can just buy a throw away SIM card as a tourist. We need to buy post paid card which doesn’t make sense for us as we are only travelling 2 weeks.

So Jackie suggested from XHS that we can prepare touch and go and Alipay to try, well that certainly will increase the difficult as China do not use much cash anymore. But okie tomorrow I will update the adventage to see if we are able to live comfortably in china without carry any cash over.

Last dinner with Tracy to thanks her for the bike and the tofu is so so nice and I want to use it as my dish in the future if I do cook at home. I will miss Hanoi endless free flow of vegetable.