Dang Dong to Beijing Train#T876

We filled in the departure cards for Vietnam and around midnight the Chinese train was ready for boarding. It was an instant improvement from the last train. Carpeted throughout, comfier beds, starched linen and decent pillows. I especially liked the embroidered doilies on the seats which gave it an instant Chinese feel, as well as the large thermos of boiling water in each compartment.

A very young Chinese customs official came aboard and took our details. He spent an age scrutinising our passport photos in a bid to look important, but didn’t really pull it off. Then he took the passports and off he went. ‘Surely it’s not so easy to get into China?’ I thought, as the train pulled out of the station. We stopped a good while later on the Chinese side and were ordered off into what looked like an airport immigration room. ‘Ah, so it won’t be so easy after all.’ I concluded. The border guards were just messing with us however, as we were told to get back on the train after two minutes of sitting down. Who knows why?The young border guard then gave us back our passports and that was that- one of the easiest borders I have ever crossed!

We slept soundly in our comfortable new surroundings to the sway and clackety-clack of the train. At 7am we were asked to leave the train at Nanning so it could load up more carriages and a dining car for the trip to Beijing. I carried Harry off the train as he was still sound asleep. The waiting room had oversized chairs that we dozed in for an hour or so until we could get back on the train again. We boarded and promptly fell asleep for another few hours, cocooned in our duvets and rocked to sleep by the sound of the train.