Lào Cai

The bus dropped me off around the corner from the train station of Lao Cai. From there, it's around 2.5km to the actual border crossing. Since I had been advised to expect large crowds, and only had about an hour of buffer time, I decided to take a moto taxi to the border checkpoint.

It wasn't quite like other checkpoints I had ever been to. This was a strictly pedestrian crossing, and not even cars were permitted to enter the area.

When I entered the processing hall, I was one of five people trying to exit Vietnam, and only one counter was manned. I was mentally preparing myself to run into trouble, seeing how I didn't have a Chinese visa. However, since December 2023, German nationals receive a 15 day visa exemption on arrival in China. This was a very recent development, so I figured not every worker would be familiar with it.

It seemed like I was right. There was some sort of problem, but the officer didn't talk to me. Only sent me off to another counter, which was unmanned, and called his supervisor. She came to me, asked in English where I'm from, and just sighed in his direction when I explained that I was a German national. She was familiar with the new rules, told him to stamp me out, and sent me on my way.

After exiting the Vietnam processing hall, I had to walk across the border bridge. Beyond the bridge I had to fill out my Chinese immigration form, which asked me for my address in the country and if I already knew my departure date and if I had any contacts in the country. Pretty standard procedure.

For the immigration to China, there were around six differently labeled queues. I dutifully went to the one labeled "Foreigners", but was approached by a friendly officer who sent me to a different counter altogether, labeled "The Belt and Road Lane". This confused me a bit, since the Belt and Road initiative is the Chinese approach to rebuilding a modern silk road, optimizing global shipping routes. I wasn't sure how I fit into that category, but maybe for immigration purposes it was simply a catch all term, seeing how the queue there was the longest.

Irritably, there were several Chinese nationals in the queue behind and ahead of me, who tried to indicate to me to queue up as a foreigner, to which I attempted to explain that I was told by an official to queue right where I was.

My biometrics were taken at the counter, and confusingly the machine was blaring commands at me in German: "Linke Hand, rechte Hand, beide Daumen!" Following this, I got stamped in without further troubles (the officer didn't talk to me at all).

Overall, the process was seamless, took a total of 35min from queuing up in Vietnam to receiving my stamp in China, and was easier than some other border crossings that I've done in my life.Read more