Train ride to Lao Cai

---

Day one up north. Well, it was very sad to say goodbye to Dave and Sarah. From now on I will be spelling her name correctly with an H at the end. Sorry Sarah for the screwup. I had one full day in Hanoi before I left for the train last night. We all had one more dinner. Dave found a very famous place that only serves one thing.
Actually the book said "legendary". They serve fish that you cook in front of you yourself with a bunch of different things to mix in. We figured if you only serve one thing for years and years and people are still coming back you must have figured out something right. And it was great. Very different than some of the other meals we had had during the week. Was sort of nice that we sat in chairs a bit larger too. I definitly surpass the weight limit for some of those stools they use. Last night at dinner I was sitting away peacefully then Wham! One flattened stool, one tourist laying on his back in the street and many smiling Vietnamese onlookers.

On the way to dinner it is so funny to watch the women here checking out Sarah. They are so fascinated with the way she looks. In the states its not uncommon for the men to look at the passing women. Here its the women checking out the passing tourist women. Also, what is so funny is that when they younger ones take pictures, And they take lots of pictures. They all pose like models. Not one picture with just a smile. Its like they are copying what they have seen in a magazine.

Earlier in the day I had gone to the Vietnam military museum. Was interesting how they would display the weapons. In the states we would put a rifle lets say out and then the card would read M16 the rifle issued to GI men in Vietnam. Here they put a rifle out and it says This gun killed 13 Americans during the battle of such and such. Every weapon on display had a listing of how may men it had killed in glorious battle. Just a different way of doing things

After saying goodbye to Dave and Sarah, (Please be safe in Laos and be safe in getting home guys!) I was shipped off to the train station in Hanoi. As I made my way to a 4 berth sleeping car wondering what that was. I found myself in a very very small room with a bunkbed on each side sitting and facing 3 very drunk vietnamese men. And even though smoking is not allowed on the train every one of them pulled out their packs to get ready. Needless to say I was not looking forward to sleeping with these guys. I walked down the aisle and in the next room were 3 young men from Spain. They had pretty good English and as we were talking another older Vietnamese man showed up in their room. Well. the lightbulb went off and after 10 min of charades which never seem to work here I pretty much picked him up and pointed at my bed and the 3 men there. He finally caught on and we switched rooms. I felt much better about that after the switch.

The train took 10 hours and we arrived here at 6 am in the morning. From about 4 am i was woke up by giant flashes of light which turned out to be lightning and of course massive amounts of rain. Can't have a rural motorcycle ride without the rain can we. So sitting here in the hotel that they let me use a room to take a shower in and waiting for bikes to show up on next train and watching the rain. Its just raining and raining. Will check in later when I get a chance. Part of me is wondering what the heck I am doing. I really have no good idea where we are even going. Just going to follow the guide. Not sure what I got myself into.

Signing off for now
Dave

---

Photos

Russian made tank
Killed like 89,999, 000 enemy troops or something like that.