During our Northern Expedition (
http://sammyboyforum.fun/interna...-far-east.html) in the summer, ErZi and myself talked about doing our Southern Expedition during the winter – a trip that I’ve been thinking about for a while, but have been put it off for many stupid reasons like too busy lah, not enough spare time lah! So, we thought we should made a special effort this winter – especially before the expiry of our “Certificate of Health Examination” we got from HeiHe that has one year validity, as we heard that we will need this for the China/Vietnam border crossing. Moreover, it has been more than a decade since I last visited Guangxi. Although there are other land crossings in southern China, we decided on the Guangxi border crossing because GX is home to many MMs we have met in more “developed” areas like DG. We also tried to get our two local Chinese cheongster friends from Beijing who were with us for the Northern Expedition to join us, since they will be expected to freeze their asses off in Beijing during this time of the year.
(P/S Paiseh paiseh and my apologies – I realized I’ve never quite completed the DongBei section of my FRs for our Northern Expedition, but I’ll try to complete it from my rusted brain one of these days.)
Pre-trip planning
It has been most hectic for me and EZ, and didn’t have much time to do any planning. I was hoping to rely on my local friends for that. However, one local friend decided to stay put in Beijing to keep his girlfriend warm. Another went to US, but on his return in early December informed us that he prefers to go to Sanya since he heard that the famous BBS street in FangChengGang has been bulldozed in the name of development and he could not contact his girlfriend. But EZ and myself decided to stick to our plan to visit Guangxi and make the border crossing into Vietnam. By then, we have also already got our visa for Vietnam. We decided on the following route after giving due consideration to our time, and other festive/biz obligations in HZ/DS: Fly from SZ to Beihai北海(BH); Bus to Qingzhou钦州(QZ), Bus to FangChengGang防城港(FCG), Bus to DongXing东兴(DX), Walk into MongCai (MC), Walk back to DX, Bus to Nanning南宁(NN), and Fly to GZ – the locations:
Southern Expedition - Guangxi China / MongCai Vietnam - Google Maps
I shall provide FRs for each of the places we visited, based on some of the notes I have. I am sure EZ will add some details from his much better memory – this old brain of mine is getting somewhat rusty, although bonking has been great help to slow down the aging process! Moreover, I’m still fearful of what my old sifu once told me – the third leg will drop off if I stop using it! We will be happy to answer any question(s) other bros may have.
Acclimitization
EZ and myself have been very busy with our other commitments since our Northern Expedition. No choice – we could not get sponsorships from people like Nike (Just Do It) and MacDonald (I’m Loving It), and so we still have to do real work to sponsor ourselves for such cultural expeditions.
As we have been out of action for so long, we decided it is only right that we get some acclimatization in more familiar grounds such as CP, HZ & DS to catch up with old acquaintances, as well as meeting some business associates, while sharpening our “tools” for the Expedition.
We were in CP to meet with a cheongster friend and I was pleasantly surprised to find a real gem from one of my favourite BBSs. The MM is new, so lack experience – but she sure reminds me of the MMs I met many many moons ago when CP sees far less tourists and MMs were not so mercenary. We then head to HZ for Christmas & DanShui to count down the New Year. You can find some postings of our happenings and misadventures in the Huizhou thread (
http://sammyboyforum.fun/interna...ations-38.html) – after that EZ & myself were “mentally” prepared for our Southern Expedition when we flew on the first day of 2010 from Shenzhen to BH, the first stop of our Expedition.