From Hanoi to Hue
After returning from our Ha Long Bay tour we had 24 hours left in Hanoi. In the evening, following a much needed wash, we headed out to meet Donald and Deidre at the 'Little Hanoi', where you can get some very cheap Vietnamese dishes. Fed up with the blandness of our Ha Long Tour meals, however, I succumbed to the beef steak with chips. After a few beers we exchanged our farewells and best wishes, and we were off on our own once more.After a delicious breakfast in one of our favourite French-style cafes (I'm sure you can tell by now just how much we've enjoyed eating out at Vietnam prices) we had a day of laundry, packing, and postcard duties. It was not one of our more enjoyable days, and things seemed to get so much worse when we arrived at Hanoi train station. With the station all but dead and the station workers about as helpful as those we encountered in China, we were left deeply confused. Thankfully, an Australian looking for a train to Beijing, was able to point out our problem - our taxi had dropped us off at the train station for trains heading north (which we didn't know existed because it was on the crease of our Lonely Planet map), not south!
Luckily for us the other Hanoi train station was adjacent and only a 5 minute walk away. It might have been nice if the station attendants had made this a bit clearer when I showed them the train tickets - one of them even told me to go and wait at platform 3!
The journey got much better from then on. We found our soft-sleeper cabin (having learnt our lesson on the Xi'an-Guangzhou train!) to be surprisingly comfortable. With 4 beds in a cabin it is always an anxious wait to see who you'll be sharing with but we got quite lucky this time. In one of the beds was a jolly American lady called Lindsay. She has spent a lot of time travelling and living in Asia and as a travel and tourism lecturer in Houston she was very enthusiastic about our journey (apparently not many of her students would even consider taking 6 months out to go travelling). The final bed was taken up by a Vietnamese man, who was visibly disappointed to find 3 westeners sitting in his cabin; he spent most of the journey either asleep or in the food carriage.
The journey was certainly the best we've had in Asia. Our train left Hanoi at 19.00, so it wasn't far off Emily's bed-time (for anybody who doesn't know yet, Emily likes to sleep a lot). One of the more interesting discoveries on the train was the fact that for some of the journey we were actually on the road - not adjacent to the road, but on it, sailing through the suburbs of Hanoi, with shops and people on either side. This was quite a novel experience.
It actually proved to be quite easy to sleep on the train, at least until the driver tried to stop the train; it seems he didn't quite believe in a slow and steady approach to braking. We awoke fairly early and were treated to some incredible scenery. This was accompanied by complementary ready-meal noodles, which were surprisingly edible, although not necessarily what you want first thing in the morning.
We arrived just after 8am after what had been a most enjoyable journey. On arrival we were delighted to see a man holding a notice with COMPTON on it. As promised, the hotel had sent a driver to pick us up; this at least saved us from having to deal with the many taxi, minibus, motorbike and cyclo drivers who wait outside the railway station exit shouting prices and destinations at you. The hotel, which was not far away, appeared to be clean, friendly and a bit of a bargain, and on first impressions, Hue looked a much calmer and more approachable place. Things were looking up.
Chris
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