Last week I took the train from Saigon to Hanoi and back for a quick visit there. The journey on the Reunification Express takes a minimum of 29 hours each way. (I hate to imagine using a local.) This is a little-used route for foreigner tourists, because you can’t get a “through ticket” that lets you get off and on at other interesting tourist sites along the way, which is part of why the café bus system is attractive to backpackers. And the 90-minute plane ride doesn’t cost very much more than the train. All the way up and down, I only saw about a half dozen foreigners.
You can get just a seat, much like a seat on a coach bus, only with a loud video screen playing most of the time, which costs about $45 each way. A “hard sleeper” with six berths per cabin is about $55. And the premium spot, a bottom bunk in a “soft sleeper” with four berths per cabin is about $63 each way.
I chose an 11 p.m. start time for the ride up. The noise of children getting settled and the blaring pop music and political speeches on an antique public address system wrapped up by about 1 a.m., and I got a few hours of sleep until dawn. At 5’9 ½”, I just barely fit comfortably into my bunk. Anyone taller would be cramped.
My bunkmates were friendly enough, but we didn’t hit it off that well and we didn’t have any way to communicate. The return trip was more sociable. On the way up I mostly enjoyed the view, which was the main point of taking the train.
Along the way, I enjoyed looking at:
-Flocks of storks
-Water buffalo in the rice fields and pulling carts on the country roads
-People harvesting rice
-Coconut, banana and rubber trees
-Lotus flower farms
-Fish ponds and duck pens
-People casting their fishing nets in the morning outside fishing villages
-Kids waiting in ambush with buckets of mud to throw in the open train windows
-Lightening storms over the horizon
-Church steeples peeking up over villages in the distance
-Water cress ponds
-Cabbage fields
-Family tombs scattered among the rice fields
-Miles and miles with no motorbikes in sight
-Miles and miles with no shade trees in sight
-Hundreds of dusty little hamlets where dogs and children chase the train
-And, as you can see for yourself in the pictures, tons of pectacular views of mountains, harbors, sand dunes, beaches and islands
It was a long day with a lot of commotion in the hall—children playing, porters rolling the food carts around, packed lunches brought out of the luggage, people queuing up for the bathrooms. At miscellaneous dusty stations, passengers would jump off for the few minutes that we were stopped to buy dried fish or other snacks. After each stop, a recorded message narrated the history of the province we were in and its role in resisting invaders and unifying the country. Between times, traditional music played. Nightfall came quickly about 7 p.m., people settled into their cabins, and I slept almost all the rest of the way. We reached Hanoi at 5:30 a.m., one hour behind schedule.
Details, notes and advice for other interested travelers:
There are three express trains each way with varying departure times. I bought my tickets at the Vietnam Railways office on Pham Ngu Lao Street about four days ahead of time. You can buy the return ticket at the same time. A couple times I picked a train, and they checked the computer system and found the kind of seat I was looking for was sold out, so I would pick a different time. The best views of the sea are in the vicinity Da Nang/Lang Co/Hue. So, all other factors being equal, look at the time table and try to pick a departure time that will have you in that area during the daylight hours. They don’t take credit card, so you’ll want to hit the nearby ATM machines for about 2 million VND first.
Food: I recommend bringing a bag of groceries with about half the calories you’ll need during the travel time. There’s plenty of food on board, but not a lot of control over what you will get. The guidebooks say that meals are included, but there seems to have been some kind of pricing-structure change recently that means everyone pays for meals on board. Porters come around a couple hours before (or the night before for breakfast) and take your order. The charge was about 20,000 VND, and they give you a ticket that you hand over when the meal comes later. Almost no English was spoken, so I was generally agreeing to whatever was offered without knowing what I would get. Usually it was a lot of rice, a little cabbage, a little soup, and some iffy meat—pork, beef or chicken. The meat didn’t sit well with me, and I was glad I had hit a Co-op Mart beforehand for comfort food. If you want to bring anything instant, such as ramen noodles, there is a hot water tank in each car to serve yourself from. There weren’t so many reliable opportunities to buy food at the stops as I expected. When I did, it was a very hasty exchange with sign language. The porters also bring around carts with snacks and drinks every couple hours.
They provide about 1.5 liters of water per day, so I was glad I brought a couple more 1.5 liter bottles with me. I didn’t trust the tap water in the wash room, so I was careful to brush my teeth with bottled water.
Given another chance, I probably would take the top bunk instead of the bottom bunk in a cabin with four berths. That’s presumably less desirable because of less luggage space. But unless you're trying to haul several boxes of gifts from home like some passengers, there was plenty of storage space up there for a few backpacks, and you are less likely to have visitors sharing your space when you need an afternoon nap. (More about that in the installment about my return trip, still to come, entitled “Much Luck, Much Children.”) I had several people impose on the storage space under my bed anyway.
Plan on having or finding a hotel room immediately at the other end. It’s interesting but a hard way to travel, with a tough bathroom situation, and you’ll want a place to tidy up afterward as soon as you can.
