Let's take the train he said. We can interact with the locals he said. It'll be fun he said. Poor Martha. What did I get her into? Well it was certainly an adventure. Don't get me wrong. It was a learning experience. It was quite interesting to travel with people who's culture is so different yet so much the same.
As for the passengers, we had an older man across from us that slept most of the way. But while everyone else was settling in, his body language and eye aversion made it abundantly clear that we were an annoyance.
And then there was the young man who pushed his way into our space with a bag of rice and a large box that left us with no leg room for six hours. He was obviously very concerned about his cargo and less concerned about us. This was not an overt display of bravado, it was just what the Vietnamese culture allows. From an American standpoint it was rude. But, when in Rome.
The people across isle were on a non- stop eat fest. They ate fruit. A lot of fruit. Then they ate something that smelled like Kim chi. It really smelled bad.
Every seat was filled on an eleven car train. We got soft seats in a car with struggling A/C.
There were also seats available in the hard car. This is a car with slatted wood seats that resembled park benches and had no A/C in 90° weather with 87% humidity.
The train had food vendors that offered corn on the cob. Caramel pop corn, rice cakes, potato chips, noodles, and some sort of meat on a stick.
And then there were the "squid ladies". The squid ladies had large squid dried and bagged. They hawked them relentlessly. We were invited to buy stinky squid a number of times before the conductor ran them off to somewhere else on the train.
We also had dragon fruit vendors who ran into the train at one of our stops. They literally ran from car to car selling their one kilo bundles of fruits. It was a frantic assault.
When we arrived at Nha Trang we were tired, cramped, re-educated and very happy to leave the train. The only problem we have is that we have two more rather lengthy train rides on this trip before we get to Hanoi.
An obscured view out of the train window
Martha's Comments:
We took great care to make sure we booked a train with air conditioning. Arrived at the train station an hour early, as instructed, to find out that IT has no air conditioning, so we were soaked through with sweat before even getting onto the train.
This train, and each one we took after, was exactly on time. Which was good, because nobody in the train station spoke English, so we were busy just watching people and showing them our tickets to figure out where to go. Chuck wanted to sit out on the platform where it was cool and shaded, but we were quickly ushered back into the hot and sticky station.
Our train was equipped with "Railway TV", so we got to watch a Vietnamese Zumba class while riding. I had this mental picture of everyone on the train getting up and trying to exercise along with the video. Doesn't take much to amuse me, I guess.
My first impression of the train was the smells....Vietnam's trains are old and well-used, so there's that smell of years of humans having been in there. Then there's the fish sauce. Everything smells like fish sauce. And people either bring food on or buy food from the carts. There was corn, rice, soup, and some stinky fermented food across the aisle that made me think of Kim chi.
People watching was kind of fun. There was a young man and woman behind us. He sounded Australian and she was probably Korean. They were also headed to Nha Trang. They were obviously dating, and she had apparently bought into the belief that pouting and acting bratty was the best way to get attention.
Behind them was a whole group traveling together who appeared to be getting ready for a rowdy vacation. They were talking and laughing the whole 7 hours on the train.
Across the aisle, a small child was sitting with what appeared to be her grandfather. She decided that the sloped seat back made a good slide, and was sliding down the seat back over and over again.
Across from us, when we first got on, was an older Vietnamese man. He didn't speak to us or acknowledge us. He just went to sleep...and slept most of the trip. At the first stop, a young man got on carrying a big box. We were sitting at a table in the middle of the train car, and he slid the box and a big bag under the table, taking all the legroom we had. Our knees were so cramped, we were barely able to stand by the time the trip was over.
Chuck had bought a SIM card for his phone, so I borrowed the phone for a while to do some online chatting and snapping photos to send to my friend back in the US. She remarked how odd it was to be sitting in her bed at night, watching scenes from rural Vietnam go past. Technology is amazing.
When we got to Ca Na, we got our first sight of the ocean. I enjoyed the glimpses we got from there until we got to Nha Trang two hours later. I also noted that the scenery on the right and left side of the train were completely different. On the right side was the ocean and clear skies, while clouds and mountains were on the left.
We arrived at Nha Trang just around sunset, hot and sweaty and tired. We were greeted by the driver for La Suisse Hotel, who brought us safely to our hotel.
Vital Statistics
Date - Tuesday, September 22
High Temperature - 93 degrees, Head index 105 degrees
Hours on the Train - 7.5
Miles on the Train - about 270
