Read about my experience of crossing from China to Vietnam by land, as well as practical information on planning your Vietnam border crossing. We were two travellers: one with a British passport and one with an EU passport. We crossed to Vietnam at the Pingxiang-Lang Son border crossing point (aka the Friendship Pass).

China and Vietnam share a sizeable land border, but most people end up flying rather than crossing by land. In this post, I’ll be sharing my personal experience on how to cross from China to Vietnam by land, plus practical tips to plan your journey.

Click here to skip to the practical tips section.

China to Vietnam By Land: My Experience

I visited both China and Vietnam on my recent 7-month Asia trip, and crossed the China-Vietnam border by land. Truth be told, my original plan had also been to fly to Vietnam. We’d travelled around China entirely by train (sometimes even the slow train), and would have preferred to make our way slowly south by land, but needed a booked outbound flight for the China visa.

Unexpectedly, our flight to Vietnam was cancelled a few weeks before we were due to fly. It turned out that the entire route (Shanghai to Hanoi via Hong Kong) had been discontinued by the airline. We’d originally wanted to travel to Vietnam by land, so I guess the universe delivered.

First Leg: Shanghai to Nanning

The starting point for getting to Vietnam from China is Nanning, a city in the southern Chinese region of Guangxi. Guangxi is an autonomous region with a sizeable Zhuang ethnic minority population. Guangxi borders Vietnam, and is famous for its beautiful mountainous landscapes – you may have heard of Guilin, which is located in Guangxi.

Nanning is the capital of Guangxi region and has good transport links to the rest of the country. We ended up spending a few nights in Nanning, but weren’t particularly inspired. It feels just like any major Chinese city.

We started our journey to Vietnam from Shanghai, taking a 20-hour sleeper train from Shanghai to Nanning. There’s also a high-speed train from Shanghai to Nanning, but as Shanghai is much further north, it still takes 12 hours.

We paid for the (relative) comfort of first class ‘soft sleeper’ bunks on the slow train, which ended up being 1/3 cheaper than the high-speed train. And that’s not factoring in the ‘free’ night’s sleep on the slow train. It was also our first time travelling first class on a sleeper train in China, so it was a bit of a novel experience as well. You could also go more budget-core with ‘hard sleeper’ bunks if you wanted.

Read more in my guide to taking the train in China.

Once you get to Nanning, you can take a 7-hour bus to Hanoi in Vietnam. This is the best option to cross to Vietnam from China by land. However, I took a slightly longer way, which is essentially the same route but with an added detour.

I’ve included full practical information on how to take the bus to Vietnam from China at the end of this article. But for now, let’s take a scenic detour.

Scenic Detour: Detian waterfall

Instead of heading to Vietnam from Nanning straight away, we decided to see one last bucketlist-worthy sight in China: Detian Waterfall.

Visiting Detian Waterfall

Detian Waterfall, also known as Ban Gioc Falls (pronounced ban zeoh), is a spectacular waterfall straddling the Vietnam-China border. It’s the largest transnational waterfall in Asia, and the 4th largest in the world behind Iguazu, Victoria Falls, and Niagara Falls. The waterfall is located quite out of the way on both sides of the border, so we decided we may as well see it while we were in the area.

At this point you might be thinking: great so you went to the waterfall and crossed to Vietnam from there. End of story, right? Wrong!

You can’t actually cross to Vietnam at the waterfall. We were so close yet so far!

There is a pilot programme allowing tour groups to cross the border here. But for now it’s limited to day trips, and only to Chinese and Vietnamese citizens/permanent residents. So unfortunately, although I could see Vietnam across the water, and possibly strayed into Vietnamese territory while bamboo rafting on the river, we couldn’t officially cross here.

The whole area around Detian Waterfall is very pretty and we spent a few extra days here to explore. We stayed for three nights in total in a village called Mingshi (明仕村), located in Daxin County (大新县). The area has similar karst mountain landscapes to Guilin, which is in the same region but further north east.

Read more about how to visit Detian Waterfall.

Mingshi was beautiful and peaceful, but very rural, i.e. lacking in regular public transport. 

In order to cross to Vietnam, we had to get to Pingxiang, the border town (which is actually a small city). Trying to do this without a car proved to be a bit of a logistical headache.

Mingshi to Chongzuo

Rather than going all the way back to Nanning, i.e. heading further away from the Vietnam border, it made more sense to go to the nearer city of Chongzuo instead. Chongzuo also has good public transport links to the Vietnam border.

There is a convoluted public transport route from Mingshi to the nearest town, Daxin, and then onto Chongzuo. But we didn’t end up doing this.

We missed the morning bus out of Mingshi because… well, we’re only human sometimes. The next bus going in that direction would have been late afternoon – not ideal, as we’d be hanging around all day.

If, at this point, you’re confused by the whirlwind of forgettable place names I just dropped, then that’s probably akin to how I felt trying to plan our route to the Vietnam border.

Our lovely homestay hosts had gone to visit some family and, very trustingly, left us to check out unsupervised. I guess everyone knows everyone in a small village, so there’s no need to lock up. It was pelting down with rain and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere… Our only viable option was to get a taxi.

Luckily for us, we managed to hail the only local DiDi taxi driver in Mingshi, which we found out after getting into the car! It’s usually very difficult to hail a DiDi there. We took the taxi directly to Chongzuo, which cost ¥260. It would have been slightly cheaper to go to Daxin by taxi, and then by bus to Chongzuo, but not really worth it.

I realise in hindsight that we could have just gotten a taxi directly to Pingxiang. It would have cost a few hundred yuan more, but would have saved us a lot of time.

But learn from my mistakes! If you’re planning to include Detian Waterfall on your route to Vietnam, I cover the logistics in more detail later on in this post.

It was quite a scenic drive – we passed by multitudes of fog-capped karst mountain formations. As we sped through the countryside, I also admired the Zhuang-style houses we passed, with their distinctive spiky roof corners. I had a good chat with the driver and probably asked a lot of ‘city girl’ questions like “why is that field flooded?” and “omg what crop is that?”

We arrived in Chongzuo at 14:00. There was actually enough time to cross to Vietnam the same day, but we decided to take a more relaxed pace, so I booked us a last-minute hotel in Chongzuo.

Getting to the Vietnamese Border

Now, over a week after we left Shanghai, we were finally beginning the last leg of our journey to Vietnam. Our last day in China!

We took 3 buses and 1 taxi to get to Hanoi! From Chongzuo it took around 5 hours to get to Hanoi.

Chongzuo bus station was pretty small and there was only a convenience store inside selling (ultra-processed) snacks and drinks. We’d rushed out of the hotel in the morning and hadn’t eaten breakfast or brought any back-up food (oops, more on that later).

Like pretty much everywhere in China, you need your ID to buy tickets. We duly showed our passports at the ticket office and purchased two bus tickets to Pingxiang (the border town). We took the 10:00am bus.

The bus station seemed quite laid-back compared to what we’d experienced in the big cities. Of course, there was a luggage scanner at the entrance, but it felt like it was for show more than anything. We handed over our paper tickets, and they didn’t ask to see our ID! Compared to the airport-level security you get in most Chinese train stations, this felt weirdly lax.

Our bus was a reasonably comfortable coach with white headrest covers on each seat. Our driver instructed everyone to fasten their seatbelts, but didn’t seem to care too much when not many people listened.

The journey was quite smooth, and I admired the scenery through the window. It started pelting down with rain by the time we reached the highway. Thankfully, it had mostly abated by the time we arrived in Pingxiang less than an hour later.

Just before entering Pingxiang town itself, we had to pass through a security checkpoint. A policeman came onto the bus to check everyone’s ID cards. He was very confused by our passports and took them to a small cabin to consult with his colleague. Our bus had to park up on the side and wait. He asked me a few questions, including what country was written on our passports. He initially thought we were American, and then asked if we were Canadian. It was clear that he couldn’t read English at all.

He took photos of our passports on a mobile phone and sent them off for approval. This is something that’s quite routinely done in high security areas. It happened to us fairly frequently in Beijing, so we’d gotten used to it, but the first few times definitely felt a bit disconcerting. Eventually, we were let through once he received higher approval. 

The bus station in Pingxiang bus station was even smaller than Chongzuo. It was essentially a tiny building with a car park. The ticket window had information written in Chinese and Vietnamese. I tried to buy tickets to Hanoi, but was told I’d have to buy them at the actual border.

We’d planned on having lunch in Pingxiang whilst waiting for the bus to Hanoi, mistakenly assuming everything would be in the same station.

We were about to head out to find some food when we were approached by a guy who’d been on our bus. He looked to be in his early-to-mid 30s, casually dressed with a small wheeled suitcase. He was also heading to the border crossing and asked if we wanted to share a taxi. It cost ¥45 for the 20-minute drive – not budget-breaking even if we hadn’t shared. It turned out that our new friend was going to Vietnam for business, so he crossed this border quite frequently.

As soon as we pulled up outside the Youyi Friendship pass gates, we were ambushed by three ladies selling Vietnamese SIM cards and umbrellas (it was drizzling). I’d already bought a Vietnamese eSIM in preparation, and managed to fend them off.

Crossing to Vietnam

The Friendship Pass was, rather hilariously, labelled as a ‘scenic area’, as if were a tourist attraction. When you go through the main gate, there are indeed several impressive-looking monuments to admire. There were some people milling around, but I don’t think anybody was there purely for the novelty of seeing the China-Vietnam border.

We had a cursory passport check at the first gate, and then there was actually a fair bit of walking to get to the Vietnam side of the border.

To cross the China-Vietnam border, you have to pass through separate Chinese and Vietnamese border control. They’re located in two separate buildings with a short walk in between.

Going through Chinese border control was pretty straightforward. First, we had our temperatures checked by an automated scanner. I was asked a few questions by the border policeman before he stamped my passport.

We took a quick toilet break and browsed the duty free shop. Our new friend exchanged us some Vietnamese Dong. He was well-prepared, and had a separate wallet of cash.

The Vietnamese border checkpoint was a slightly mixed bag for us. I wasn’t asked any questions, but my travel companion got pulled into a separate room to check his visa. This only took about 10 minutes, and the border guards spoke enough English to give basic instructions.

The whole border crossing process took us around 2 hours.

Arriving in Vietnam

On the Vietnam side of the border, we bought bus tickets to Hanoi from an official operative. We paid in CNY using Alipay. We bade farewell to our bus friend who was staying locally in Lang Son, and boarded our very comfortable 18-seater coach. There was lots of legroom, and the time passed fairly quickly.

We stopped for a toilet break at a petrol station at around 14:30 and finally had some food!

The Vietnam side of the border was noticeably more humid and no longer raining. We drove past a lot of planted rice paddies. Interesting to see the difference in climate, as the farmers in Mingshi weren’t planting rice for another month yet.

The bus dropped us off in Hanoi at the bus stop, which was essential by the roadside. Luckily, I had my eSIM active, and I was able to call a taxi using Grab (Vietnamese Uber).

We arrived in Hanoi at 15:15, just over 5 hours after we set off. A long journey and quite an adventure!

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Essential Information for Vietnam Land Crossing

For British citizens, you can enter Vietnam visa-free for 45 days. That includes entry by land and air. You don’t need to do any paperwork in advance (hurray!). If you’re planning to stay longer than 45 days, you can apply for an e-visa for up to 90 days. Singaporean and Malaysian citizens are visa-free for 30 days.

For everyone else (including USA, Canada, Australia, and most European countries), you need to apply in advance for an e-visa for land entry. This applies to land crossings to Vietnam from China, as well as from Cambodia and Laos.

Here are the essential things you need to know for getting an e-visa for Vietnam:

• Apply online through the official government website
• You can apply for a 30-day or 90-day visa, which can be either single-entry or multiple-entry
• Visa approval takes 3 business days (this doesn’t include weekends/public holidays; make sure to leave enough time for this)
• It costs $25 for single-entry and $50 for multiple-entry (payment online in US Dollars)
• You must print out the e-visa. It’s not enough to show the document on your phone. We found a print shop near our hotel, which cost ¥2 for an A4 colour print
• You have to state your intended entry and exit port during the application process

How strict are they with entry and exit ports?

Although you have to state your intended entry and exit ports on your e-visa application, you might be wondering if you have to stick rigidly to your original plan.

I couldn’t find a definitive answer on either the Vietnamese visa website or the UK Vietnamese embassy website. The UK government website advises that “e-visas restrict you to the entry and exit points you select when you apply”.

However, from scouring online sources (take this with a pinch of salt), the overall consensus seems to be that you should stick to your original entry port, but you can use a different exit port.

The entry port is often (not always) printed on the e-visa, but the exit port is usually not printed. Your exit port can therefore be a different one, as long as it’s one of the official-approved exit ports allowing e-visa (which is most of them).

On my trip, my travel partner’s e-visa (30-day single entry) didn’t state either the exit or entry port. We used the same entry and exit ports stated on the visa, so I don’t have any personal experience on whether changing our exit port would have been allowed.

Do you need proof of onward travel?

Again, it’s hard to verify the exact policy from an official source, but it seems that you do technically require proof of onward travel for entry into Vietnam. This makes sense because they want to make sure you are actually planning to leave Vietnam at the end of your trip.

To apply for a Vietnamese e-visa you don’t need to submit any flight/bus tickets to prove your itinerary.

Recently, there seems to be a general shift in Southeast Asia in terms of being less strict with asking for proof of onward travel. This is likely because they want more tourism, and they understand that a lot of these tourists are backpackers with loose itineraries who are more likely to travel by land rather than air.

In general (again, big pinch of salt advised), they are less likely to ask for proof of onward travel if you are entering Vietnam by land border vs flying. If you have an e-visa you are less likely to be asked for proof, but if you are visa-exempt (e.g. Brits) you are slightly more likely to be asked for proof.

We hadn’t booked onward travel, as we were planning to take the bus from Vietnam to Cambodia and wanted to keep our plans open-ended. You could book a bus ticket online if you prefer, which seems to be an accepted proof of onward travel (I used 12Go to book most of my bus tickets in Vietnam).

From personal experience, neither of us were asked for proof of onward travel when we entered Vietnam from China. This might also be because the Pingxiang-Lang Son land border is a rather unusual point of entry to Vietnam for foreigners. Almost everyone else in the queue had Chinese or Vietnamese passports.

Border Crossing Points Between China and Vietnam

There are three major land border crossing points between China and Vietnam:

• Pingxiang / Lang Son (also known as Youyi Friendship Pass, Dong Dang International Gate, or Huu Nghi landport)
• Hekou / Lao Cai
• Dong Xing / Mong Cai

You can find a full list of all entry ports to Vietnam, including air and seaports, on the official e-visa website.

Pingxiang-Lang Son is the most popular and busiest land border crossing between China and Vietnam. Note that on the Vietnam official list of entry ports, it’s listed as “Huu Nghi landport”.

Pingxiang-Lang Son and Dong Xing-Mong Cai landports are located in Guangxi, China and the Hekou-Lao Cai landport is located in Yunnan, China.

Transport Options

To cross by land from China to Vietnam you need to take the bus. Previously you could take the train from Beijing or Nanning to Hanoi, but this has been suspended since COVID and hasn’t yet restarted.

I’ve included two routes to cross to Vietnam – both are via the Pingxiang-Lang Son border crossing, also known as the Youyi Friendship Pass or Dong Dang International Gate. The first option is directly from Nanning, and the second option is if you’re taking a detour to see Detian Waterfall.

Pingxiang (凭祥) is the name of the border town on the Chinese side, and Lang Son is the area on the Vietnamese side.

Nanning (南宁), your starting point, is the major city located in Guangxi in southern China. It’s well-connected by high-speed train and also has an international airport.

Nanning to Hanoi

The bus from Nanning to Hanoi takes around 7 hours, costing ¥188.

Buses depart from Langdong Bus Station (琅东汽车站) daily at: 08:15, 08:30, 09:30, 11:00.

If you have a mainland China ID card (probably nobody reading this), you can book tickets online through the Guangxi public transport WeChat mini-app (运德出行). For the rest of us, you’ll have to buy the tickets in person at the bus station using your passport.

It’s advertised as a direct bus, but there are actually several legs of the journey. Nanning to the Youyi Friendship Pass is around 3 hours. You’ll take a shuttle bus to the actual border (there are two buildings you have to walk through). Once you’re through to the Vietnam side, you take the shuttle bus to your final bus, which takes you to Hanoi (in around 3 hours).

Detian Waterfall (Mingshi) to Hanoi

If you decide to take a detour to visit Detian Waterfall, here’s how to get to the Pingxiang border crossing from Mingshi.

By far the easiest option would be to take a taxi from Mingshi directly to Pingxiang. A DiDi will cost around ¥300-400, with a journey time of 1.5-2 hours. You could also ask your homestay or hotel to arrange a private driver, which is a more reliable option.

Mingshi is very rural, so it’s hard to take public transport here, but it is possible. Unfortunately, there’s no direct bus from Mingshi to Pingxiang. The closest transport hub with connections to the border town Pingxiang (凭祥) is Chongzuo city (崇左). You’ll need to go via Daxin town (大新) to get to Chongzuo.

The route you need to take is: Mingshi → Daxin → Chongzuo → Pingxiang (3 buses)

For the Chinese buses, you can purchase bus tickets from the station ticket window using Alipay.

From Pingxiang, you go through the Youyi Friendship Pass on foot, and then buy a bus ticket to Hanoi on the other side.

Once you go through the Vietnamese border control, there are bus operators selling tickets to Hanoi (¥90 per person). Look for the official sellers from Yunde Group (运德集团) in red jackets. You can pay with Alipay in CNY.

Note: you can buy Vietnam bus tickets on 12Go, but these depart from Lang Son bus station. You would need to pay for a shuttle bus or local taxi to take you there first, so it works out cheaper and quicker to get the Yunde Group bus directly from the border.

Bus Timetables

Mingshi to Daxin Bus
A local bus goes from Mingshi to Daxin in the mornings. However it’s not listed on the official Guangxi bus service mini-app, so check the timings with your homestay/hotel. The distance is 45km (28 miles) and should take around an hour.

Daxin to Chongzuo Bus
Departs daily at: 08:00, 09:20, 10:00, 10:20, 11:00, 13:00, 14:10, 14:30, 15:10, 15:40, 16:20, 17:35
Cost: ¥30 | Distance: 85km, 1h5min
(NB there is no direct Daxin to Pingxiang bus)

Chongzuo to Pingxiang
Departs daily at: 08:30, 10:00, 11:30, 13:00, 14:30, 16:00, 17:30, 18:30
Cost: ¥40 | Distance: 79km, 1h10m
Theoretically, you could aim for the 11:00 Daxin to Chongzuo bus, and then the 13:00 Chongzuo to Pingxiang bus.

After Crossing to Vietnam

I advise setting up an eSIM so you have internet connectivity straight away once you cross into Vietnam. You’ll need it to call a taxi to your hotel once you reach Hanoi (you can pay by card). I used an Airalo eSIM for the first few days and then bought a local SIM card later.

Grab is the main ride-hailing service in Vietnam. Download the Grab app and set it up before you leave for the border. Setting up the payment method takes time, as Grab does a small initial charge to check your card is valid first. You don’t want to be doing this on the side of a road in a new country!

Vietnam is a predominantly cash-based system. Exchanging money in China can be a bit of a headache. There are unofficial money exchangers on the Vietnam side of the border. You could exchange a small amount here first so you have some cash. But you could also wait until you reach Hanoi to withdraw money from a cash machine.

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