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Tue, 23 Sep 2008

/xLife/China: Nanning to Hanoi: Cheap and Easy

Getting back and forth between China and Vietnam is cheap and easy. The bus ride between Hanoi and Nanning costs only 150 RMB (~US$20), and you can catch the first one around 0830 at either end, no advance ticket purchase necessary. You change buses at the border, and arrive at your destination in mid-afternoon.

On the Nanning end, the Vietnamese embassy is in a quite obscure location, but service is good and you can get a same day six month business visa for US$200. Demonstrating typical bureaucratic efficiency, their website[1] does not appear to give an address. Here[2] we can find an address (but without Chinese):

Consulate General of Vietnam in Nanning, China
1ST floor, Touzi Dasha
109 Minzu Avenue
Nanning, CHINA
City: Nanning
Phone: (86-77) 1551 0562
Fax: (86-77) 1 553 4738
Email: tlsqvn@rediffmail.com

The bus station in Nanning is also a very long ride out to the edge of town, 30 RMB by taxi from the train station.

On the Hanoi end, the Chinese embassy[3] is easy to find, on the west side of Lenin Park. Per usual for Asian embassies, it would seem, the website seems to have no address and no information about hours of operation, not even in Chinese. Note that the front gate also has no English, all signs are in Chinese and Vietnamese. Address[4][5]:

Embassy of China
46 Hoang Dieu,
Ba Đình, Hanoi
Phone: (04) 845 3736
Email: chinaemb_vn@mfa.gov.cn
Hours: Mon-Fri, 0830-1100

As of this writing (23 Sep 2008) you only need a photocopy of your passport front page and Vietnamese visa and entry stamp. No mention of return plane tickets, or hotel reservations. You will be turned away if you wear flip-flops (sandals with a heel-strap are accepted) or your shirt does not cover your shoulders (no kidding). Service is terrible, and glacially slow, as there are only two immigration agents working visas, and most customers seem to be travel agents with two dozen passports under their arm. I got there about nine and did not leave until after eleven. After being told at 1040 that I needed to rush out and get the photocopies mentioned above. People wearing flip-flops were being turned away at the front of the line after waiting for two hours, right in front of the guard who was turning them away. Welcome to China.

As for the bus station in Hanoi, it is also a little ways out of town, tucked in beside a hotel at the NE corner of "Phõ Đội Cấn" and "Giai Văn Cao" streets in Ba Đình district. (I will try to get an address...)

[1] http://www.vietnamconsulate-nanning.org/en
[2] http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Vietnam#8101
[3] http://vn.china-embassy.org/
[4] http://newhanoian.xemzi.com/en/venue/show/380/Embassy-of-China
[5] http://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zwjg/2490/2491/t14390.htm

posted at: 05:34 | path: /xLife/China | permanent link to this entry

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Tue, 23 Sep 2008