Train to Hanoi

Jaimie’s Story:
We checked out of our home stay in Hoi An around 12PM. With a little time to kill, we schedule a car to drop us off at the dragon bridge in Da Nang. This bridge didn’t have any attractions but was neat to look at and walk across. It overlooked a nice river with a huge mountain in the back drop. It was rainy and overcast that day but on a clear day that view would have been dynamite.

The lady at our home stay seemed pretty confused on why we wanted to be dropped off there. She kept mentioning there was nothing to do near by and our bags would be heavy. That was ok with us, we enjoy walking and experiencing a city the way a local might, even if that meant lugging our stuff. That’s what the backpacks were for any way. We are officially urban backpackers now.

We walked around Da Nang for a couple of hours before our train. It started to rain so we ducked into a coffee shop. The hustle and bustle of the big city was exciting. It made us wish we had booked at least one day in Da Nang.

Later we googled the best place to eat in town and ended up at Thien Ly. AJ ordered the Le Bo Bun and I got the Bun Bo Hue. Both were incredible. We leisurely finished our meal while watching the interactions of the people who ran the restaurant. Like many places in Vietnam, it was definitely a family business. Mom was in the back cooking, older brother was overseeing everything and a young girl of around 14 was taking everyone’s orders. It was really sweet and made us feel more at home.

After dinner we stocked up on beer and candy and headed to the train station. We got a little lost along the way but it was fun dodging motorbikes in the rain. We booked two spots on the overnight train to Hanoi. It takes 16 hours but you have bunk beds and it’s supposed to be a cool experience. Cool, I’m not so sure.

The cabins were small and bug infested, the AC barely worked and there was no WiFi (gasp!). It was an experience alright. Let’s just say, it was not my favorite part of the day and I was less of a trooper than I’d like to admit. At least our roommate was a nice traveler from Germany. A fellow from Hoi An told us once he shared his cabin with a crate with four dogs in it. So there’s that.

AJ’s Story
I have alway romanticized trains. As a kid I had plastic toy trains I would play with. my mother would read midnight express on Christmas Eve every year after I had put together my fathers Lionel model train set. My mom would tell me I was the only one who could make it work anymore. Thanksgivings we would ride an actual train to Philadelphia to avoid traffic on our way to visit family.

Trains aren’t fast or particularly complex in how they work. They’re mostly loud, shaky and uncomfortable to be on. The classically terrible speaker system that nobody completely understands, really only tells you to look out the window and usually doesn’t provide actual information.

The trains in Vietnam have all the inconveniences of trains in the US. And on top of those unpleasantries add heat, humidity and bugs. The broken speaker system is in Vietnamese which neither adds nor detracts from their normal ability to convey information. Only rice fields and distant ocean views pass by as we stare out the window of our sleeper car.

We smuggled 6 huda beers to share on the train. The cool refreshment could not combat the sweltering heat of our tightly packed quarters. 2.5 beers in we couldn’t take the heat any longer, Jaimie started to cry at the thought of spending 16 hours trapped in this buggy, uncomfortable sweat box. I was able to squish the bugs by our bed and we we flagged down an attendant who was able to relieve us from the heat with a modicum of air conditioning.

A few days before our train ride to Hanoi from Hoi An, we were at a bar with a few westerners who were decrying that their business trip would be a on a train instead of a flight. One guy said that there’s a legend of an old lady who wanders the cars at night, licking the feet of sleeping passengers.

The shaking of the train is soothing to me, feeling the bumps on the road. The direct lines towards the intended destination with no interruptions for traffic, alternate routes or determining where to turn (gps voice: re-calculating). You watch the world go by a few feet at a time. Imagining the lives of the people who’s houses you cruise by. Steady and consistent only concerned about what is to come in the next city we pass through on our tour of Southeast Asia.