Arrived in LaoCai at 7.30am. Stored my bag at the train station (10,000 Dong~USD$0.50), had breakfast (20,000 Dong~USD$1)

and got a minivan (35,000 Dong ~USD$1.7) to Sapa. Sapa is just around 35km away from LaoCai. Sapa is a very colorful town with a few ethnic minority groups such as the Hmong, Dai and Tay.

It’s very misty up in Sapa.

Church

BBQ piglet

Lake

Hmong people discussing about business

Terraced paddy field

Got back to LaoCai at 2pm and got on a motorbike taxi to the Vietnam-China border which is 3km away from the train station.

Leaving Vietnam

Crossed the border to the border town, HeKou.

Bought a 8pm bus ticket (137Yuan ~USD$20, 450km, 9 hours) from HeKou to Kunming.

I almost forgot that the time in China is an hour ahead of Vietnam, luckily there were still some time left when I thought about that. The sleeper bus left at 8pm sharp and was full. China has a first class infrastructure, the roads are much better than Vietnam and many other South East Asian countries. After spending the past few weeks on slow buses going on windy, narrow and bumpy roads, the bus ride to Kunming felt quite different. The bus went pretty fast. Instead of going around the mountains, there are many tunnels through the mountains and it’s a 4 lane highway so the ride was more comfortable.

From Changsha to Shenzhen is around 800 km away.

View Larger Map

Got to Shenzhen LuoHu train station at almost 9am in the morning. Took the metro

to BaiShiZhou. Shenzhen metro currently only has 2 lines but is expanding its metro system to 5 lines and further west to Shekou.
Kurt picked me up and we went for DimSum.

Crashed at Kurt’s place at NanShan area, just right beside SheKou port at the western part of Shenzhen.

Shenzhen is an interesting city. 30 years ago, the city was just a farmland with 300,000 people. But today the city is the 3rd most populous city in China with a population of around 15 millions and is one of the richest in China.

In 1979, DengXiaoPing was trying to pick a city experimenting with capitalism. Back then, Shenzhen was still a backwater town and the city was picked as a Special Economic Zone because the city is located at the edge of the country, so it won’t post a threat to communism and the city is also close to Hong Kong.

The city is a main manufacturing center in China. A lot of the OEM electronic manufacturers are based in Shenzhen. The city is also ranked as the top financial center in the world and has one of the busiest port in the world.

Met an old friend, LiNa who I have not seen for 8 years for lunch.

Took bus 1 (8 Yuan) all the way from ShiJieZhiChuang (Windows of the World) at Futian all the way to DongBuHuaQiaoCheng located at the eastern part of Shenzhen. I think the bus covered a distance of around 40 km.
View from the double decker bus

Took bus J1 back from the DongBuHuaQiaoCheng to SheKou area (9 Yuan). The route covered pretty much the whole Shenzhen from West to East. The bus J1 covered a horizontal distance of around 50km and that’s approximately how big is Shenzhen from the western part to the east. In most Chinese cities, I like taking the public bus and go around the city, especially buses which go across the city from an outer edge to another corner of the city.

View Larger Map

Coastal City (HaiAnCheng)

Went to a bar with live music with Kurt at the new district of SheKou. Shekou is inhabited by a relatively big expatriate community.