The Reunification Express

Having sadly said goodbye to SE2 from HCM to Hanoi last Friday, we were elated to be reunited yesterday for the 2.5 hour leg north from Da Nang to Hue.
Before I get on to the train itself I have to advise dear reader/s (ever optimistic) that I am suffering an undiagnosable technical difficulty in uploading photos onto the blog. It may be that I have used up too many GBs (I am allowed 1 per blog) or more likely, it is because I am about 10 years too old and IT fixes are beyond me. Perhaps Alex's arrival in a week's time in Laos will save the day. For now, it is either words only or join facebook, befriend me and look at the photos there.
I have little doubt that Da Nang is the future of Vietnam. A burgeoning cityscape, enormous beach resorts, golf courses designed by Western stars of the circuit (Montgomerie and Norman featured), lots of clearly middle class housing, good weather and numerous wedding venues.
Whatever your status on the economic ladder of life here, everyone and I mean everyone has to have a Big Fat Vietnamese wedding. They are on all the time and almost everywhere.
In Hoi An, even the most modest of restaurants, are cordoned off and spill over on to the sidewalks and even into the streets when there are rings to be exchanged, truly appalling songs to be sung by Uncles and Fathers of the Bride or Groom and flowers to be festooned. By the time our taxi had got us from Hoi An to Da Nang in order to reacquaint us with SE2, we had passed, literally, blocks of wedding palaces, all full of punters, on a steamy Wednesday morning. Not unsurprisingly, the two biggest venues were next to each other and aptly named Queen Palace and King Palace. They also seem to go on for days at a time. Here in Hue today, just outside the Imperial Palace but within the Citadel walls, we came upon a large party of guests at a restaurant, where typically the most out of tune western ballad was being massacred which was what attracted us initially, to discover the wedding does not take place tomorrow...even though the bottles of Chivas Regal being passed around were being emptied at an exponential rate. Perhaps tomorrow, for most of the guests, when the big day actually arrives, will be more like a Big Fat Vietnamese hangover.
They turn the air con off while a train is stationery for any extended length of time. When SE2 arrives from HCM into Da Nang, it stays over 15 minutes and longer if, as yesterday it arrived a bit early. Rather than a 4 bed berth, I had booked two "soft" seats in an ordinary carriage and while the seats were certainly softer than the beds, by the time we departed DN, the crowded carriage was a mass of sweat and general bother. I had a private hissy fit as I knew that the best seats were on the right hand side as the train headed north. As they had a splendid view of the very dramatic coastline north of DN as the train snakes its way very slowly indeed along the sides of cliffs. Almost predictably, our reserved seats were on the left hand side and even worse, were facing backwards and even worse than that, were in the very middle so we had no legroom as faced our fellow passengers a couple of men in their late 30s / early 40s, suffering terrible catarrh and being the biggest throat clearers since we flew China Southern last year. Having already had a humour failure due to the Finnish sauna conditions and the poor seating arrangements, I started to fume as one of our neighbours relieved the boredom by playing a very loud game on his mobile phone. Fortunately, the good doctor travelling with me, who is never backward in coming forward when there is excessive noise on a train, was able to bridge the language barrier to ensure that the mute button was applied promptly. The lack of that tinny noise seemed to induce a stupor in our neighbours and before long a sustained symphonic snore started that lasted over an hour. I retreated into my shell of disappointment only to recover as the train rattled its way into Hue, a city of many churches.
Having offloaded the bags and ourselves on the Hue platform we were soon disillusioned to find that our prepaid taxi was not appearing to take us to our hotel. While we experienced the Hue Hassle from a number of standby wannabe drivers, it was my turn to bridge the language barrier with the hotel and express in understated firmness how underwhelmed I was. Complaining works. When we arrived we were upgraded from the cheapest room to the honeymoon bungalow. The resort is a few kms out of the centre and as I type in our spacious room, there is no other sound apart from the keys as I press on them.