Hanoi was the last city in Vietnam for us before making our way north to China. To get to China we took a nine-hour overnight train to the Chinese border town of Hekou and then an eleven-hour bus to Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan Province in southwest China. When we arrived in Hekou we literally walked across the bridge from Vietnam to China. The customs officer in China looked at my passport, chuckled and said “ugh, American” and then said something in Chinese that was apparently hilarious to his counterpart. This was followed by a full search of both of our bags – the first such search at any of the border crossings. The biggest item of interest was an unopened box of three bars of soap that we had bought in Vietnam. Three inspection agents looked at it, sniffed it and eventually handed me a knife to cut open one of the boxes to more closely inspect its contents. We had heard the customs agents were tough at the Chinese border so our bag inspection was a relatively minor process. But still, they had my heart beating having a foreign discussion all crowded around my bag. I wanted to tell them “it’s clean” but I’m afraid the humor would have been lost in translation.
At the foot of the bridge, leaving Vietnam.
Near end of bridge, entering China.
1 comment:
that is CRAZY!!!!!
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