"All aboard!"

Tess' initial comment, as she sat down on the couchette-style bed in our berth which would be our home for 16.5 hours, was that she was glad that I had booked the soft bed berth option. Yes indeed we were departing Ho Chi Minh on the express train numbered SE2 bound eventually for Hanoi. We were simply overnighting on the train which departed on time at 7pm and arrived in Da Nang today 10 minutes early at 1130am.

When I say express train, I am not talking in the same sense of the trains that race across Japan. The rolling stock here in Vietnam is far more "traditional". I doubt we got much above 70kmh at any point.

Of course, Tess was being facetious too about the soft berth option. I had booked the most expensive seats on the train (it wasn't much) and the mattress was rock hard.



Before our companions arrived



The corridor of the train



My view to the right out of HCM city



Tess enjoying the journey



My pillow. This was comfortable !



Our train SE2 awaiting to depart HCM bound for Hanoi

Before we departed HCM, our four berth cabin had 5 occupants! Tess and I had booked the bottom two bunks and above Tess was a woman in her late 20s/early 30s with her very excited daughter aged about 5 and above me was a man I suspect was about my age, with a persistent cough who smelt liked Vicks vaco-rub.

Not only was our combined luggage stored under the bunks and on shelves (the Vietnamese like to travel big on trains and we saw wide screen TVs and other appliances being loaded aboard), the conductor clearly trusted Tess and me as we also had two very (and I mean very) large bags of cashews and pistachios, as well as one large bag of tiny wrapped presents placed by him under our beds.

Within 15 minutes of pulling out of the station, as we went past people eating in restaurants and in their houses in greater Saigon, we were unilaterally plunged into darkness as all of the trains lights (apart from ones at the end of each corridor and individual reading lights) were switched off.

Having contended with my friend's smelly feet hanging over my bunk for a good 15 minutes, we were now entertained by various mobile telephone ringtones. The Australians occupying the cabin next to us had each bought 6 packs of "tinnies" and were being very raucous before the good doctor who is my wife went and told them to shut their cabin door. Just as we seemed to be getting to sleep our 5 year old cabin colleague decided to turn on her mother's mobile and listen to some of the worst English pop songs I have ever heard.

I decided to struggle on with my novel as I tossed and turned on the concrete plinth that masqueraded as my mattress. Between the occasional toilet break by our berth's occupants, station stops, the rocking motion of the train itself, the noise as we went over bridges (again there are an awful lot here) and the pain the comes from lying on concrete that would awaken me every 30 minutes or so, I felt like I was jetlagged as we pulled into a station at dawn I recall was named "Tin Can". Perhaps I dreamt that bit?



Vendors at Tin Can train station at first light today



Looking a bit lagged first thing this morning while still on board



The endless rice paddies that feed the growing population of Vietnam from the train



Our salvation : Da Nang station

Our overnight companions disappeared at stops as we closed in on Da Nang and were replaced by others. We had a surprisingly good hot coffee with condensed milk from the train guard for 40,000 dong (the local currency). We got to see vast swathes of rice paddies worked on by villagers who must have much worse backs than our short train experience had provided to us.



The view from our room here in Hoi An

We were met, as planned, by a driver from our hotel here in Hoi An and whisked the 30kms down to Hoi An from Da Nang in no time. We sped along "China Beach", which is now intent on turning itself into the next Waikiki or Gold Coast. From GI "R & R" to 5 star Sheraton and Conrad resorts in 40 years. Hard to imagine now as capitalism surges ahead here in a notionally communist one party state, what McNamara et al were worried about. I suspect HCM would be shocked by it all.