Crossing the border from Vietnam into China once again proved the divide that a small river can create. From the Vietnamese side we left behind ramshackle French-colonial buildings and wide streets for Soviet-esque cement buildings hunched over narrow streets in China. Equally, English disappeared but so did the rapid-fire, unsolicited requests to spend money.
Immediately China stood above us, four storeys high and filled with signs indecipherable to us. A short walk took us to the bus station and our transport to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. Unfortunately the only transport option was the 'sleeper bus', 'sleeper' in inverted commas because there wasn't much sleeping done. The sleeper bus is essentially a slightly-tall coach, but instead of seats there's small beds arranged in three rows running the length of the coach, and bunk-bedded two high. At the beginning of the trip the beds seemed just long enough for Claire and I, but shrank the further we got into our 14-hour trip. Whilst the map indicated we'd take a highway to Kunming, the bumping and swaying demonstrated a more circuitous path of 'short-cuts', some of which seemed to take the bus through plowed fields. Anyway, we finally made it to Kunming and fell asleep at the guest house.
The people, too made us instantly feel like we were in China. Very willing to approach us for a chat, Chinese sentences quickly role off their tongue. They have a different attitude too, within 1 hour of being in China we saw our first angry, public dispute and have continued to see them since. Thankfully, however, their attitude towards tourists is much more relaxed. After a month of being cajoled, summoned and pulled by Vietnamese hawkers its a pleasure to just stroll through town without having products thrust in our face. There's far more smiling amongst the Chinese than the Vietnamese.
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