The runaway train went over the hill and she blew....wooo wooo!

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Hello world!

Man, is it good to have internet again!

However, the lack of internet over the past few days means that Mike and I have a LOT of catching up to do. So, I'm writing this post about our (long) journey from Hue to Hanoi, but by now we have left Hanoi (contrary to the location data for this post), and are, in fact, in Bangkok. We are waiting (for hours and hours...) for our flight home. We can't even check in for another hour, and we've already been in the airport for 2 and a half hours.

But I digress.

We had been excited about our overnight train journey to Hanoi for a while. Neither Mike nor I had ever been on a train for 14 hours before (I'm fairly sure the longest train journey I've taken is up to Nottingham to visit Mike), and we'd never slept on one! But just before we were due to leave for the train station, Mike got all concerned that we hadn't got tickets for beds, but for seats. That would have been uncomfortable! This worried me a little, and so we were both a little on edge throughout the lengthy wait for the train to arrive. We also didn't have a clue what was going on; we were ushered through into a waiting room, and then ushered onto a platform, from which one could just casually saunter onto the tracks. We had to go all the way down the platform. And there we waited. And waited. It started to rain. Still we waited.

But eventually a very delapidated train pulled up on our platform, and we hastened on (so fast that I wasn't able to take a picture of our train), even though it looked very much like a freight train. After maneuvering our suitcases down the incredibly tiny corridors, we found our room, only to discover some Vietnamese lady asleep in Mike's bed. She didn't speak English, and so we did some gesturing at her, and she left our room. We managed to fit our suitcases under the bunk (well, mine fit, but Mike's was sticking out hugely because he hadn't packed it terribly well). And then Mike did an ingenious swapping over of the slept-on mattress and bedclothes with the undisturbed one on the other bunk.

The train started off, and we were given water and beef pot noodles. Mike gave his back, which was a mistake not only because I had already looked on the ingredients and discovered that there was no actual beef in it, but also because I would have had both of them! But as it was, Mike asked the dude where the restaurant car was, and we trundled, rucksacks and all, down the entire length of the train, leaping through all the joins in the carriages. We got to the front to find a room with a few booths in it, mostly occupied with train staff. But they ushered us in, and we ordered food. But, in true Vietnamese style, they didn't really understand Mike's vegetarianism, and his came with beef in it, and when we managed to explain that he couldn't eat beef to them, it came back...with smaller bits of beef in it. So he got an English-speaking conductor to get them to make rice for him (this took FOREVER). We played 20 questions, and Mike was rubbish. He didn't get Walt Disney, cigarettes, or Cameron Diaz. I got Gaddafi. But only just at the end because Mike misled me about whether he was from North Africa. And he misled me about John Logie Baird too, because I even said his name, but his answers directed me away from him.

After Mike finished his rice, we went back to our room and chilled for a bit. Mike read his civil war book, and I listened (quite actively; I was actually singing at one point) to my music, until we were joined in our room by a Vietnamese man. We were disappointed that we no longer had the room to ourselves, but it didn't really matter, because he was quite quiet and slept most of the time (hugging his briefcase; it was kinda cute really). He was very 70s, this man; he had a very 70s moustache (well, attempt at a moustache) and his socks were quite retro too. But I couldn't sing any more. I was sad 😞. Mike wasn't :P.

And that was that for a little bit. I had a bit of a nap. And when I woke up I ate the entire box of popcorn that I had bought in the restaurant car (this took me a good hour to 2 hours), interspersed with playing on my DS. And then I went to bed at 11:30pm, but this was short-lived because at 00:30, we were joined by another passenger. Who boards a train at half-midnight? Strange place... I was quite annoyed because this woke me up. But he went straight to sleep, and turned the lights out right away (well, after he lined up all his bags immaculately on the bag storage area), so he wasn't any trouble either.

I did manage to get back to sleep, and woke up again when we arrived at Hanoi at 4am (4am! So ridiculous! The train left at 3pm so it could easily have left at 6pm and we'd have got there at a much more reasonable time. But no. 4am!). We left the station and headed off all the overly keen taxi drivers because I had looked at the map and discovered that our new hotel was just around the corner from the train station. It took us only about 5 mins, and that is with us dragging bags weighing 20kg+.

We checked in, and the dudes behind the desk again tried to charge us $100 for the priviledge, but I circumvented this, telling them the man we spoke to on the phone told us we wouldn't need to pay (this was technically true, but he hadn't said this in so many words...). We were both pretty tired, so we headed up to our room and tried to get some sleep after watching the news for a tiny bit. I couldn't sleep for a while, but did get to sleep eventually. And then we couldn't wake up! But that is for Mike to tell since we agreed he would write the blog about his birthday (plus it is his turn!).

S'laters
xxx

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