Goodbye to Beihai

I somehow managed to get up at 9.30. It may have been something to do with Awl's description of the breakfast here so I got downstairs and in this case I do agree with him. English breakfast is and always will be the best. You don't have to go for the full monty but eggs and bacon are perfect. Luckily Awl had already been and gone so he didn't see me indulge in western indulgences. I also had a load of watermelon and honey melon which I suppose was healthy too.

Andge and I had to get the midday train out of here to Nanning as his flight was at 6.30pm and we were hoping to meet Tan and the kids who had gone to Nanning yesterday in order to go to some kids water theme park in lieu of coming to Beihai. We got the cab to the train station but after a nightmare queue where suddenly the Chinese cease to see you as a foreigner and treat you as any other we found out that there were no seats on the train, nor any tickets. If only they showed this on the displays...and the same was for the next train an hour later so we had no means of getting to Nanning we thought. But not for long - as we walked out of the station forlorn and wondering if we'd need another expensive cab some bloke came up to us telling us it was 60 kuai to take a bus to Nanning. We didn't look a gift horse in the mouth and despite it being twice the price of the non-available train we agreed and found ourselves on a small walk to a "bread van" car that fitted about eight people.

Thankfully that wasn't the bus to take us to Nanning. It merely took us to an ageing coach a few minutes away. So without much of a choice we dumped our stuff underneath and waited around 20 minutes till a few more people arrived and the coach was full. I wished I'd gone for a poo when we finally set off but I buckled up and Andge tried to too but he didn't have a buckle. So he tied his belt and hoped we wouldn't crash and be suspended upside down, and be unable to undo himself.

Andge trying to get out of his seat at the service station

The journey was a bit crap as the back-right wheel seemed to be under-suspended so the whole journey felt like we were lob-siding from back-right to front-left. But we made up for it with erudite conversation and shared our observations of China. We observed how the marvels of the closeness of family and quality of food compared with stuff that seems so crap to us like pavements that just end in a non-walkable area or magnificent buildings that just outside have dreadful plumbing. It's not that it's better or worse than the UK, but so so different. And you wonder if they really want to impress westerners or not, and if so why they don't just employ some consultants. I would be literally perfect for the job and would advise without insult, suggest rather than order.

But there were some other things we'd both noticed and remarked upon too. Awareness. Driving is something I've commented on dozens of times. I really like it from the perspective of someone crossing roads and also from someone driving. But I wonder if it extends further than beyond the steering wheel. Awareness literally seems to extend to the angle one sees. During the three hour plus drive we talked about this too and agreed that it seems that awareness, while driving, is applied to only what you can see in front of you. If anything is beside or behind you then the onus is on them to tell you if you are doing something untoward. Yes it may seem backward to a westerner (and it still does to me), but there is a logic to it and it works if everyone else does the same. But still to be oblivious of most of the traffic around you seems strange to me still after 10 years.

Not too long before we got to Nanning we passed by a mega sports centre...it was Wembley-like huge and we had no idea what team it must have housed but you got the impression it must have been important. But that was not our worry. I called A Wu and told him we were getting into Nanning but it seemed pretty slow. He didn't seem to hark my words and just said that when we arrived we were to find a taxi and go to his office, and apparently Tan and the kids would be there, which we'd both been hoping for. But then I realised I'd just spoken to Tan and she was very agitated as they were on their way back to Pingguo in A Xia's car and it had taken them an hour to get out of Nanning and now the kids were asleep...at least it wasn't my fault I think.

By the time we alighted at Nanning's train station we already were aware that going to A Wu's office would be a bad idea as it was already nearly 4pm. The airport is well south of Nanning and as it was an international flight we wanted to be in time. So I called A Wu and he said he'd be there in 10 minutes to pick us up. We were just off the bus and a few young ladies walked past us and insisted on taking their pictures with us. I actually rather enjoyed it as for the last few years it's been the kids who have been the focal point of literally hundreds of unknown Guangxi folk. Even an older woman, who had been sitting with her motorbike, decided she wanted her picture taken with us too, so introduced herself and got some pics on her phone. We were ruminating on this, and also on how so many cars thought it would be feasible to go down the underground car park against the "No Entry" sign, when we realised we really were in danger of missing the plane.

I called up A Wu again and he said he was 5 minutes away, but it was already 20 minutes and he should have been there 10 mins ago. I joked that he probably had stopped to buy presents, but I feared my joke was not one. We were really fretting by 4pm and all attempts to call A Wu went to a message to say he was taking a call at the time. Blimey, can't they do voicemail or calls on hold? We ended up getting in touch eventually to be told he'd already arrived, as we'd said we were getting a taxi. But he did arrive a couple of minutes later with A Ni in the back seat and loads of stuff in the boot. But we managed to rearrange everything before Andge was offered 400 fags he hasn't smoked for four years and a nice lighter he wanted but said couldn't take due to customs reasons.

Well we did get to the airport at just gone 5pm and there wasn't a great queue. So it was goodbye to Andge till the next time, and then we made the journey back to Pingguo. On the way the skies turned a deep blue and we were treated to yet another amazing lightning masterpiece that worryingly kept si ji's eyes more upwards than on the road.

Instead of going home to see the family we went straight to Bo Hai, the restaurant that specialises in goose, and had a rather nice meal in a private room with Lu Wen. The only strange thing was that they'd run out of just about every type of green vegetable - I suppose that's what happens when you roll up at 7.30pm without having booked.

Still not having seen the kids, A Wu and I went on to a massage place. I would have resisted going but my back has not been getting any better since my table tennis injury and it can be really painful just getting into and out of a car. Well the massage was sort of professional and included extreme pain but significant comfort too as she applied pressure to the point at the bottom left of my spine as well as everywhere else. But when I got up I knew nothing had really changed so I got my shoes on, woke up a snoring A Wu on the bed next to me and got driven to the bbq place to pick up some fried noodles for Tan before getting home and seeing the kids before a relatively early night.