The Indian Contractor visits Vietnam and China on a Shoestring

Okay, so let me get staight to the problem. We had two tickets. Both for the same departure time and same compartment. But one of the tickets had a different train number. This was bad. The guy who checked my ticket toldme to board the next train. My buddy was shocked. We had booked the tickets to gether. But the ticket checker insisted that the train was correct but the timing was wrong. I insisted that the guy who wrote out the ticket wrote the train number wrongly. He pointed me to the ticket office. I sped to the entrance only to be blocked by masses of people rushing out of the tiny door and into the train. I saw a police officer outside and tried explaining my predicament to him. He signalled me to shut up and demanded my ticket. I handed him my ticket. He glared at the numbers and letters. Then another guy came over and read the ticket. He asked me to take the next train. And told me there was no point in arguing with him. This where something amazing happened. The police officer shouted at the other guy and told him that the train number was wrong.

The other guy insisted it was not, but the policeman poked at the written timing and asked him to shut up too! He then pointed to the office and made a stamping gesture. He asked the other guy to follow us. We got our tickets restamped and the train number changed. I walked over to the policeman and thanked him personally. Not all grouchy people are bad. A chinese saying came to my mind, "the mouth is foul, but the heart is good".

We boarded the train and found that it was a non airconditoned compartment. No problems there, but there were 6 beds per cabin and only one tiny fan on top. I was the only guy in my cabin. But the Vietnamese ladies were very nice. And one of them, a student, spoke a little english. we exchanged some niceties and went to sleep. Our beds were the topmost beds in the cabin as such it lacked air circulation. The beds below had an open window and the fan to keep them cool. We could not even sit up as the ceiling was too low. But I did not care much as it was an overnight train.

At about 3 am I found it increasingly difficult to sleep. The ladies below had turned off the only fan and my body started sweating. It became increasingly difficult to sleep. It was dark too so I did not wanna risk getting off my bed for fear of stepping onto someone. I was lucky the train reached Hanoi at the scheduled time of 0430am.