China day 24 – Wuhan, leaving at last

Hurrah!!!  The tickets for tonight’s train to Guilin finally make an appearance after lunch.  We have been hanging around the hostel for them all morning and moved out of our room on the strength of the staff’s repeated assurances that they were on their way.  We’ve used the time productively though, researching how to get out of China and into Vietnam.   It seems remarkably difficult to find any information about transport across the border, although we have been advised that we won’t get train tickets direct to Hanoi as there are only 4 sleeper tickets allocated to the Guilin stop.  It seems that the best way to get to Hanoi is to go from Guilin to Nanning and catch an express bus through to Hanoi.  The alternative is to go from Nanning to the border either by train or bus, walk across and pick up a bus on the Vietnamese side.   Oh what fun!!  The train pulls out of Wuhan at 8pm and hour and a quarter late, and we have, at last, escaped.  The Chinese trains are very noisy and jerky affairs, so much so, it feels as if the carriage is either going to fall apart at any minute or fly off the tracks or both, but at the very least will prevent a good night’s sleep.