We could have taken a series of night busses to get from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi , but my friend Debs and I decided to go by train. It would take 33 hours! Two months previously Gosia and I had entered Vietnam overland at the middle point from Laos and we had headed south in order to find some warm weather. We could have flown. The observant among you will be noticing that Gosia seems to have been replaced by Debs.
That happened in Cambodia. After meeting Debs in Siem Reap and spending time clambering around the temples I had to say an emotional goodbye to Gosia who has the rest of her life to get on with β and then on with welcoming my friend Debs who had come over from Spain.
On the train we had reserved the top bunks in a 4-berth cabin which we were sharing with the sweetest young Vietnamese couple. The lady was nearly nine months pregnant and oh so shy. Her husband spoke very softly too and the pair of them slept for most of the journey while Debs and I kept our eye on the lady with the coffee trolley and the hot water urn in case we had to help with a birth.
We were in the better class of carriage β with soft bunks, although goodness knows how any of the smaller Asian people manage to climb up into the top bunks. It was a bit of a scramble for me and Debs and we are both quite tall. There was a middle class section on the train with reclining seats and the cheap seats with hard, wooden slatted benches. In our middle class carriage we were invited to share food with the other passengers and we were included in whatever they were saying and doing, not that we understood much at all, but it was a lovely community spirit.
Passengers boarded the train and left throughout the journey so there was plenty of interesting people-watching to do. We walked through the lower class carriages where we found people trying to make themselves comfortable on the floor underneath the benches. They were lying on sheets of cardboard and most had wrapped themselves up in fleecy blankets. A food trolley was pushed along the train at regular intervals by two of the grumpiest men ever.
