16.04 - Day 19 - Overnight Train from Hanoi to Hue, Vietnam
Thursday 16th April
Overnight train from Hanoi to Hue, Vietnam
Temperature Min 25, Max 35
12,855 steps
I'm awake before my roommates at 5:00am, our train still rumbling southbound. The line, single track In most places, goes from Hanoi all the way to Ho Chi Min / Saigon taking 32 hours. I think our 13-hour taster is enough in one go - that said, in this tourist carriage (there are individual private operators like our Lotus Train who effectively rent a carriage from Vietnam railways and drop in nicer bedding and food), it's decent enough. The toilet even stays clean all night.
Peaking through the curtain the landscape is a continued stream of rice fields, banana trees, with houses dotted around. Invariably scooters wait at every crossing we pass even as the sun starts to rise. We'd worked out last night that our trip will average 55 kmph (715 kilometres in 13 hours) and compare it to our Taiwan train from Taipei to Kaoshiung which to averaged 230 kmph (345 kilometres in 1.5 hours).
Around 7-ish I join our other cabin and we delve into our breakfast boxes - croissant, bread, jam, butter, milk and a mandarin. There's a boiling water tap at the end of the carriage for the sweet 3-in-1 coffee sachets. At the same time Mema and Pawpaw are given some cards and a small stone tortoise: today is their actual 49th Wedding Anniversary, not the white lie version from Monday on the cruise. Time to pack as our SE19 train pulls into Hue bang on time at 9am.
Waltzing past the optimistic taxi drivers we walk 15 minutes to Nha Bo Homestay - booked for last night but only with the intention to use it for 3 hours until it's midday check-out for showers and luggage storage ($30 for the night) - even if we do need help from two locals to find it in the first place.
Clean and refreshed, a Grab takes us to Treetop Cafe beside the Citadel just inside the old city walls. Like several drivers he fishes for more work (for cash, outside of the Grab network) as he proudly tells us the car is only a week old, even offering to drive us to Hoi-An, our next stop, 3 hours away. In the end we take him up on that offer for 1.7million Dong ($85) as it's not far off the price of 5 bus tickets and also saves the hassle of the first and last mile getting to and from bus stops.
After nice drinks at Treetop Cafe from a friendly husband and wife in their extended front of house, we walk - in the shade - along the citadel and it's moat and up onto the fort's walls overlooking the outer-moat.
It's is almost eerily devoid of people, though as we walk through the impressively thick walled entrance people do emerge and we seek out the well-reviewed but not-great-name Fast Food 22 Cafe perched on the edge of the outer moat. The aircon room upstairs is full but as our faces fall, they bring out mini bags of ice to use to cool down, plus some welcome passion fruits and suddenly all is okay again as we sit outside.
We all gobble our meals with Mema and I sharing Nem Lui Tom (roll your own shrimp salad peanut sauce rice paper rolls) and Banh Khoam (crispy pancake with shrimp and pork). There's watermelon to wash it down, as water drips off the awning - for the Illusion of cold we think. That said, there are some rolls of thunder as we finish up.
After collecting cash from an ATM - Vietnam seems to straddle the cash economy and app-based payments for locals - we Grab to collect our luggage from Nha Bo onto Tam Tinh Vien where we're welcome by Jean, the Frenchman running both the homestay and the orphanage. He's helpful and proud of this area, even if his manner of speaking is a little forthright, perhaps aligning to his part-time work as a university lecturer.
When we'd collected our luggage at Nha Bo the driver was quick to show us photos of flooding in the area from October last year once he knew where we were headed and this afflicted Jean to such an extent that one of the two bungalows we'd booked is still out of action. Sienna, Seb and I stay then in a room with mezzanine, the kids upstairs me down, whilst Mema and Pawpaw have the bungalow with its two four poster single beds and thick black wooden columns with heavy darkly varnished furniture.
We'd stayed here two years ago and were keen to come back despite it slightly out of the way location - and anyway Grab brings everything closer. Jean does a little tour including the store room filled with rice - of which they get through 25 kilograms a day for all the children here. The area where I was out played in badminton two years ago now plays host to a range of scooters as the kids have aged.
For their anniversary dinner Mema and Pawpaw opt to try a restaurant recommended by Jean - Les Jardins de la Carambole, a Grab ride back into town. The kids and I hop in the same car but get dropped off on the side of a road to revisit a Banh Mi stall I'd found two years ago in the pouring rain. Mini rolls of pork or egg are so tasty we go back after six for four more. We sit next door with a pair of cane juices, on small plastic stools watching a steady stream of scooters and cars pull up, get a roll or five then leave. Tastiest 97,000 Dong ever spent. We three Grab back to Tam Tinh Vien whilst Mema and Pawpaw enjoy a far more civilised meal - everyone is happy.
