Adventures By Design

In which the travelers train

We woke up, finished some last-minute packing, and checked out. We had some time to kill before our taxi was scheduled to pick us up, so we surfed the net, and briefly spoke with Nathan on Gmail (Ric updated our 2008 Asia Tour Google Map). We also met a wonderful little boy who was desperately searching for his favorite online game, Bomb Jack and needed help spelling ‘bomb’.

Our plan was to catch the taxi at 11:30, drive the hour to Danang, and have half an hour to find lunch near the train station. When 11:30 rolled around, we logged off the computers, and waited for our taxi. And waited. And waited some more. At 11:40 we were annoyed, by 11:50 we had started to worry about missing our train. We asked our hotel to call the travel agent, and were told “Don’t worry. He’s coming.” We suspected that they had completely forgot and that someone was now on scrambling to find us a ride. A few minutes later an entire twelve-seat Mercedes-Benz minibus arrived. We tried to natter at the driver about being late, but he just stuck our bags in the back, motioned us in, and started driving.

Thankfully the drive to the train station took significantly less than the hour we had been told. Along the way we got to see China Beach, and a whole lot of huge resorts that are being built to bring in more tourist dollars. We arrived at the train station with about half an hour to spare, but couldn’t find anywhere to pick up much for lunch. In the end, Gin bought some water, green tea, and M&Ms, and we hoped that they would serve some food on the train.

The train arrived and the crowd surged forward. We hung back, since our berths were reserved. We climbed on board—no small feat with our now burgeoning backpacks filled with new clothes—and settled in for our 16 hour trip. Greeting us at the door was a Vietnamese man and his seven year old son. The dad taught translation and interpretation at a university in Danang, and spoke English well. He helped us buy dinner on the train, which was helpful because we were really hungry.

The train voyage was uneventful. Our berths were spartan but adequate. Unfortunately there was no control for the air-con and we froze for much of the night, reminding us of our sleeper bus to Hoi An. But we did manage to sleep a little, and Gin didn’t get sick like she did the last time we took a train in Vietnam (ask her to tell you that story sometime… it’s a classic).