Travel Blog Chapter 6: Inside the Train

Vietnam is a long country as you can see from the map. The journey from Ho Chi Minh City all the way to Hanoi would take 36 hours and would passed through the major provinces. The plan was to travel from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and head to Halong Bay which was 4 hours away from Hanoi and eventually go up to Lao Cai which is near the border of China. From there I would be taking a bus to Sapa, the mountainous region of Vietnam that experiences 4 seasons throughout the year.

As I left off from the previous post, I was at the train station early. I went to a cafe to chill in the time I have before boarding the train. I realized that there were Coffee Bean outlets in Vietnam but no Starbucks. Everything is cheap in Vietnam. A ice blended coffee cost half or lesser the price of a similar kind in Singapore. I met a nice Australian couple in the cafe and we started to talk. Found out that this was their first trip after their honey moon and they were going to do Vietnam in 2 weeks. We were going to be on the same train but they would be getting off at Nha Trang Beach which was a 6 hour or so train ride from Ho Chi Minh City. The couple owns a motorbike spare parts and a carpentry company in Australia and it was great hanging out with them.

Exterior of the train

Water Dispenser beside my cubicle on the right

The train was seriously uncomfortable. I like to have spatial freedom to move about and really there wasn't alot of that. I saw the cubicle that I was going to sleep in and I almost regretted. The size of the cubicle was seriously the size of maybe 2 public toilets cubicle. That cubicle had 6 beds, triple decker and would be shared by yea 6 people. That was still alright...wait till at night when the locals close the door to the cubicle. You start feeling claustrophobic and with the air conditioner blowing directly at the face of the person that sleeps at the top deck, you would start coughing and sneezing in no time. So as luck would have it, my ticket allocated me the top deck to sleep in.

I waited anxiously in the beginning of the journey hoping that my cubicle would be just me alone. Fat hope. I was going to be sharing my cubicle with 3 adults and 3 kids. Cubicle meant for 6? No...it was meant for as many people as possibly could squeeze in. That was the start to a 36 hour train ride.

Now...the thing that I have picked up from my years in school, in long journeys was that if you were going to have no comfortable place to take a dump, don't eat. Or eat as little as possible. That morning I had my breakfast but all throughout the rest of the day, I scrimped on food. The toilet was in between carriage and how the heck are u going to do your business when it was such a rocky ride. Anyway...I only drank most of the time.

View from the train. Not really sure where I was.

No idea where in Vietnam I was

Dan, 1 half of the Aussie couple on the train

 I met up with the Australians again and we hung out at the bar in the train. Passing through the length of the train, I was able to see people sprawled on the floor of the train sleeping in the Softseater carriage. I almost wished I had taken the soft seater as I would rather not be in a cubicle. There is one thing that I learned about traveling in Vietnam, people would buy very cheap tickets and they would not have any place to sit or sleep. So what do they do? They bring a mat into the train and go between your legs and sleep under you. This happens in trains and buses all the time. It was one of the things I hated most in transiting between places in Vietnam. My travel companions got off 7 hours later, train was delayed and I made friends with the Vietnamese family in my cubicle. Well you know before I left off, my friend warned me not to talk to strangers because most Vietnamese will try to con you. But you simply cannot not make friends if you are going to sleep together in a cubicle. There were 2 families in my cubicle and the father of one started to converse with me in Vietnamese. Haha..this is where sign language came in. I had to signal to him that I did not understand what he was saying and got an idea to use my note pad as a means of illustrating what I want to say. I drew the map on my notepad and asked him a few times where we were. I found out that he was going to Ninh Binh. As you can see from the map, Ninh Binh was not that far from Hanoi. So there goes my hope that perhaps they would get off that night and I could have the cubicle all to myself.

The bar carriage

It was really uncomfortable at night and with the musky smell and the cold air blowing into my face I drifted in and out of my slumber. I got out of the cubicle eventually at 2am and stood by the window staring into the night. The father was up also and I guess it wasn't only me that found the cubicle claustrophobic. I was shivering as it was actually quite cold in the train at night. The numbing sound of the wheels and the vibrating carriage kind of make me feel abit depressed that I was gonna be spending another whole day in that train. To my pleasant surprise, he made me a cup of hot coffee with water from the dispenser and offered me the drink. Well...my impression of nice Vietnamese up to this point was still intact.

In the morning, the train passed through Danang and it was seriously jaw dropping beautiful. The train was on a railway track that wound through the mountains and I could see the glistening sea in the early morning sun as well as the surrounding green mountains. It was breathtaking and amazing. I would later meet 2 women for Danang in Halong Bay. I have to say the women are beautiful as well.

I made friends with the kids in my cubicle and I started playing with them. Okay, one thing anyone traveling to SEA needs to know is this. Never give a coin, money or any monetary souvenir to people. I was playing with the kids using a 20 cent coin for a magic trick and eventually just gave it to him for keepsake. For the rest of the morning, he kept asking me to give him more money in Vietnamese. I wondered secretly if his parents were the ones that encouraged him. Anyway that cubicle was getting to me and I spent the rest of the day reading in the train's bar with drinks to accompany me.

That evening I returned to my cubicle and we were approaching Nin Binh. The father chatted with me again and introduced me to a nice lady who got up at Than Hua. As they were going to get off earlier than me, out of concern, the father told me to hook up with the lady as she would let me know when to get off and she would help me along the way if I need anything. To my pleasant surprise, the lady spoke good English. Found out that she was a English Teacher and had decided to go to Hanoi to find a new job. She felt that teaching in Than Hua was not developmental for her career as well as personally. I had the most interesting talk with her. I believe I would never forget this encounter. She was paid very little in Than Hua and felt shortchanged of what she could actually do. She had ambitions to do more for her life. In Vietnam, women are marginalized and acculturated to be submissive and take on the role of a housekeeper. This woman wanted to travel the world and do something different for her life. She was married and had a very young daughter who shared our cubicle after the 2 families left. She told me she was going to give herself a month or 2 in Hanoi to see if she could find another job so as to take her first step towards accomplishing what she wants to do in the future. She had a dream to travel to different parts of Vietnam teaching underprivileged  people. She felt really oppressed where she was and as she was sharing her eyes were wet. I encouraged her to do what she wanted to do and not give in to what society expects of her. We had a good talk and exchanged contact details. She invited me to visit Than Hua and she would show me around if I do.

We arrived in Hanoi at around 8pm. I was exhausted by this time. I left the train station to meet a friend of Nam who was supposed to pick me up on his bike at the station. I would be staying with his family for a few more days in Hanoi. I helped the kind lady to carry her luggage off the train and met her brother whom she was going to be staying with during her time in Hanoi. I bidded goodbye to her knowing that I may never see her again. I prayed that she will achieve what she has sought out to do. I saw my Hanoi friend and we took off into the night on his bike leaving all the persistent taxi drivers behind.