The Indian Contractor visits Vietnam and China on a Shoestring

We completed check in formalities. and waited for the flight. The flight journey was uneventful apart from the regular staring incidents. Pacific Airlines was good value for money.

Our flight reached Danang at 9pm. Our plan was to go to Hoi An from Danang and check out the ruins at My son. But we did a feasibility check and found that we might face funding problems and hence we had to decide between Hoi An and Sapa. Hoi An was only 30 km from Danang and we had already landed at Danang but Sapa was place that was talked about averywhere and the beauty of the "tonkinese Alps" made us choose Sapa over Hoi An. So we decided to skip Hoi An and just spend the night at danang and takea connecting train to Hanoi the next day. Thus ended the Danang Dilemma.

We reached Danang hoping to find some bus connecting us to the town. But there were no buses at the time we landed and the only means of transport available was the taxi. We got into one and asked him to bring us to the railway station. The Driver said that the railway station would be closed at this time. So we asked him to bring us to this place called Hostel 34. But he brought us to the railway station instead and proudly showed us the closed doors as if to say, "See? I told you!". The meter was ticking away, and I asked him to bring us to the hostel. He told me that the hotel was out of business. Being a lonely planet reader, I thought it was a scam. He says the hotel's closed down then brings us to his "recommended" place and gets commission from the owners and so on... But it turned out he was telling the truth. We reached the specified address and there was a bar that replaced the hostel and the staff told me that the hotstel was no more.

The meter now read VND50000. It was about 1030pm already. With no one to ask, we decided to give the driver's reccomendation a try. He brought us to this place called "Ngoi Nha Nho" or "Little Home" in English. The fare had gone to VND75000. And the taxi driver did not have enough change when I gave him a hundred.

The rates were reasonable considering it was a hotel and not a hostel. about $15 a night (for 2 people) including breakfast. The room was really clean and big with a bath tub, hot water and air conditioning. The pho they cooked also tasted nice and cost only a dollar. This place was a 5 minute walk from the station so boarding the train to hanoi the next day also became easier.

We woke up next day and had breakfast, only to find out that coffee and tea were not part of the breakfast package. Upon finishing breakfast, we packed up our laundry which were dried crisp and completed the checkout formalities. Contrary to the wild and wet city of saigon, Danang as dry and hot! Thin cirrus clouds line the sky and the sun belts down mercilessly on the concretised city. The 5 minute walk to the station was more like a 5 hour walk in the Sahara. We were soaking wet when we reached the station.

The guy at the ticket counter spoke english so we managed to secure two tickets to hanoi with considerable ease. VND320,000/ person I think(including a meal and two bottles of water). Now, our tickets were soft seater tickets which meant that we would be seated from 1315hrs that day to 0530 hrs the next day. We could not get better tickets as we made a last minute booking only an hour prior to departure.

The railways in vietnam consist of metre guage trains that run on a single line between saigon and Hanoi. From Hanoi trains depart for Hai Phong(Halong Bay, Lao Cai(Sapa) and Beijing(China). The accomodation is broadly divided into sleepers and seaters. There are soft and hard sleepers/seaters that are further subdivided into aircon and non aircon compartments. We had seats in a airconditioned soft seater compartment.

I do not recommend anybody use this method of travel as it is not easy to sleep on the seats. However I will make a worser journey in China. More on that in the CHina section. The soft sleepers are much more confortable. Our compartment was full and there barely enough space to keep our backpack. But the ticket checker was very helpful and helped make space for our bags. Within a few minutes after departure we got off our seats and stood by the door armed with our cameras. Me with my trusty fm2, my companion with the Canon EOS350D. All doors on the train are locked hence we had to stick our heads out from the tiny window on the door to get some pictures.

Within half an hour after departure the views from the window started getting better. Once the train climbed up the hai van pass on the way to Hue, the views were breathtaking. Take a look at the pics. the sky, land and sea met in a beautiful harmony of blues and browns that I have never seen before. Of the many railway journeys I have made in India, I can rank the views here with some of the best in India.

Once we reached Hue, we got off and roamed around the station for a short while to get a breath of fresh air. We only saw our fellow passengers after getting back on board at Hue. There was this huge family that sat on around us. They were very nice people though they dod not speak a word of English. But Somehow they managed to ask us where we were from and upon hearing Singapore they nodded their heads approvingly. They also passed some jokes about my hair and had a good laugh at my expense but hey, I do have crazy hair so I laughed with them too.

Just when we were settling down in our seats, it started getting warm. Soon we realised that the air conditioning had failed. And it did not help that our compartment was filled to capacity. The techinicians came and opened up the emergency exit windows but it did not help us as we were seated at the back. Then they went about mending the aircon in much the same way a carpenter mends a broken chair- by hammering nails into it. These guys, however were hammering at some parts inside. Miraculously they had the aircon going in just about 15mins. The Vietnamese people are very resourceful indeed. More examples of this quality will follow as and when I remember them.

We were served dinner at about7pm which consisted of a meat dish and a vegetable dish. I gobbled up the vegetables and rice. After dinner the mood in the compartment got more lively and people started chatting more enthusiastically. We were included for certain parts of their conversation especially when they offered two ladies for marriage. First one of them pointed to me, then to a girl,following which she brought both her index fingers together as if to show a union of some sort followed by a questioning smile. I gave them a broader smile and gently shook my head at which the whole compartment burst out laughing. I guess they really saw my cheeks go red. We got off at one more station and stretched our legs before getting back into the train for the night.

Sleeping on the train was not easy even for a trained sleeper like me. The problem was this: The ladies behind me had comfortably positioned their legs on the rear of my seat. This limited the backward recline of my seat. I had to make do with a minimum push back as I did not want to disturb the ladies behind (there is a saying that goes "there's no greater sin than to wake up a sleeping man/woman").

So I slept in installments through the night, shifting between three positions after each position reached its threshold of uncomfortability. I envied the train attendant who slept on the floor with opened up cardboard boxes.

We reached the outskirts of Hanoi around 5 in the morning. Everybody in the compartment except the two of us were wide awake. We were still trying to put our vertebrae back into place. Hello Hanoi!