I wanted to call this bit "But Sir, Charlie don't surf," as quoted by a GI in the film Apocalypse Now when dropping troops off on the Vietnamese beaches for a spot of pre-fighting surfing. However, our friend, Neal Short, said we should try and fit in a classic train journey into our itinery and I think this was it. The plan was to travel to the north of Vietnam so we could get to Cat Ba Island as we'd heard there was climbing to be had there and it was not far from Halong Bay, but possibly a bit quieter. The Reunification Express does as it says on the ticket, it joins together the two ends of Vietnam formally torn apart by the war. and crosses over the former Demilitarised Zone line. It's a long journey along the whole of the Eastern Vietnamese Coast from south to north following the shore of the South China Sea.
Due to our poor preparation we arrived in HCM City (Saigon) just as everything was about to kick off/close down for the Vietnamese New Year called Tet. This was definitely their equivalent to Christmas in the West. Businesses close and people travel home to spend the time (mostly drinking I believe) with their families. When we arrived in HCM there were no train tickets available for four four days so we just had to be patient and ride it out. This is why you can see we visited lots of museums and war related stuff to pass time (see Picasa gallery). Greg also insisted on the pictures so we saw the most awful film ever made, "The Green Hornet" or something like that. I fell asleep anyhow!
Lots of flower fairs about the city and people carrying baby (half grown)apricot trees in blossom back home on the back of scooters for home decoration (these were then lit up with fairy lights just like Xmas trees). There really was a sense of hustle and bustle and I was starting to get a bit worried as we heard rumours that that there would be no open hotels of eateries in Hanoi once we arrived on the 3rd February - Tet Day itsef.
8pm on the 1st February saw us mingling in with a very excited crowd on the platform at HCN. Kids tearing around, obviously very excited. Lots of big packages that I guessed could have been presents. Must be the equivalent to the last train to Liverpool from London on Christmas Eve!
We could only get a "hard sleeper" bed in a cabin of 6 berths, so were a bit worried what this would actually be. We'd read that there could be problems with security and to watch your belongings. A great way to prepare yourself for 32 hrs journey with a bunch of strangers.
So we began with Greg and myself in our cabin shared with a husband & wife, sister and 4yr old boy called An who was very cute- all one big happy family. The bed was far from "hard" and was in fact a fairly decent mattress provided with pillow, sheets and a sort of cotton sleeping liner with a bit of padding. Reasonably clean too. (For point of information a "soft sleeper" is 4 in a cabin and presumably a better bed. We could have also booked seats soft of hard, but after 32 hrs we would probably have ended up with chronic back problems. You sit on your bed during the day or on you cabin mate's bottom bunk).
After introductions (dad spoke good English) we all mutally agreed on a common bedtime ie we just all crawled into bed. We stuffed our huge sacks under our bottom bunks and put our ear plugs in. On the whole I had a really good night's sleep. You are aware of stopping in stations and to help you wake up they play really loud music on the train's intercom system. Ahhhh! Fortunally, this only seemed to happen about two times during the night.
Morning and oh what a sight. Clouds, greyness and drizzle. The temperature had dropped too and, sadly, this actually pleased us.
The route is 1726km long and the train chugs along at an average 50km/hr, so you do get a chance to take in the sights. Much greener and hilly than the south. We were a community on the move. Kids playing in the corridors (we were a novelty item to practise English on), families camping out in corners of corridors sitting on tiny plastic chairs, adults playin betting games and of course a bit of drinking too. The train was really long. It took about 20 minutes to walk down to the restaurant car at the opposite end. Cold and boiling water drink stations were at the end of each carriage so we could even make our own tea. The toilets and wash area were kept clean and really took us by surprise as we're not all that impressed with the usual UK standard of train loo.
The long journey also gave us a chance to chat to the locals. The train announcer was keen to chat and practice his English as he also made his annuncements in English too. We discussed the country's apparent love for Uncle Ho (HCM himself. Evidently, this was no apparent love, it was real. He explained that although HCM had died before he was born, he felt a strong affection (gesturing towards his heart) for Uncle Ho and the committment and dedication he had had for his people. Strong stuff indeed. Greg also got chatting to a Vietnamese Army helicopter pilot who was on his way home for Tet following an intensive English course in Singapore. Evidently, they were due to order new stock and this would be coming from I think he said Ukraine, so English was needed in order to be able to follow the instructions. We wwere very impressed by this inteligent young man who could have been earning a fortune if based in the West.
The costline becomes more winding and rugged. I took pictures of that infamous surf and our cabin mates left to join their family for the holiday. Bliss - we now have a whole comparment to ourselves for the rest of the day and second night.
4am in the morning we crawl into a ghost-town version of Hanoi. A taxi into town, a walk around to find a few open backpackers and breakfast. Not so bad as anticipated.
Hitting town after we sorted ourselves out was quite surreal really. The streets were deserted and we were not seeing Hanoi as it really is - but this was great and we didn't care! We'd seen busy HCM City so our imaginations didn't need much help. Browsing along was so peaceful. Yes, pretty much everything was closed, but this city has many fine former colonial buildings and leafy boulevards - how I imagine a sleepy subhurb of Paris could be.
We even paid our respects to Uncle Ho as he was open for business!
Pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/lizzypatkay/qxjWxH#
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