Without any worth mentioning problems, Nicole and Ingrid have crossed the border ! From Vietnam to China ! When soldiers raised the barrier, Chinese soldiers stood there, smug-faced, a military salute.  These gestures made it very clear to us : from chaos to iron discipline ! Iron discipline, we soon will  experience.

"We feared for our visum and boy were we wrong", Nicole laughs  .  Our passports went through several hands, from one bureau to the other.  Customs-officers even came up to us and looked us straight in the eye to make sure it was us on the photo of the passport.  A bit scary though. "We have come from the chaos in Vietnam to a very disciplined China.  Today we are in the province of Quangxi, a town in Nanning.  Wide lanes, palmtrees, separate cycling-tracks, pavements.  Very tidy and clean and a lot of security people. The crossing with the Chinese border affected our ears....  from the deafening motors and motor horns we now are enjoying a quiet environment.  We will have to adjust !! All our energy goes to decoding the language.  We gaze at the traffic signs ; they're like rebus to us !  We bought a Chinese atlas and are trying to decode the cryptogramms.  When we want to eat something, they give us a Chinese menu.  We point at what we think looks nice and are praying that we won't get served a dog.... cat.... snake or rat.