Overnight train travel in Vietnam is an awesome way to get around.
Along with being much better for the environment than bus or plane travel, it’s also a great way to bond with your fellow travellers and tour leader, it’s pretty comfortable, and its a great opportunity to brush up on your poker/origami/bed-making skills.
The journey time between Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi is around 33-36 tours in duration, and you’ll want to break up the trip so you can stop off and see some of the best locations in Vietnam along the way. But some popular overnight train rides can be long, around 14 hours between some of the stops.
14 hours aboard the train is bound to stir up a few emotions.
How many of these have you felt when travelling in Vietnam?
- When you realise that 14 hours is quite a long time so you stock up on 18 kilograms of snacks at the train station. So you know, for the majority of your train trip you’ll either be asleep, or attempting to sleep. You probably don’t need more than a couple of bags of crisps or nuts, and a chocolate bar.
- 14 hours is also a long time to go without checking Instagram and Facebook, so you scramble to take advantage of the free wifi at the station.
- When you start wondering what the train will be like. Think the uber-fancy train Effie Trinket gets around on in The Hunger Games. Then think that cute video of the old guy driving all the dogs around in barrels on the back of his tractor. Now think middle ground. That’s pretty much what an overnight train’s like in Vietnam.
- When the train actually rolls into the station. See? It’s actually just a regular train, with sleeper cabins and bathrooms and food trolleys. Win!
- When you try to get on board with your luggage + 18 kilograms of snacks. It’s a really, really long way up.
- When you and your travel pal get a cabin to yourselves. Aww yeah, let’s spread out.
- When the food trolley rattles down the corridor. Despite all those snacks, you’re still tempted.
- And then you see what’s on it
It’s never good. Please, PLEASE don’t eat anything from the food carts. - So you decide to get a beer instead. But WHERE IS THE BEER TROLLEY??? I’ll tell you where it is. It’s HOURS away.
- When you realise that drinking = having to use the bathroom. But it’s also important to stay hydrated. So perhaps switch out your Huda Beer for some water.
- When you see the bathrooms. Let me be straight: I’ve seen worse. As long as you take a roll of toilet paper and a bottle of hand sanitiser, you’ll be fine. Also, wear your shoes.
- When you see a cockroach and you wonder where all their little cockroachy friends might be… But y’know, it’s all part of the journey.
- When it’s 6.30pm and you’ve eaten all your snacks and there’s nothing else to do so you go to bed
- But then MAKING your bed is really, really hard. Getting a fitted sheet onto the bed is hard at the best of times. When you’re trying to fit it to a top bunk? Nigh on impossible.
- But then you get the sheet on. Aww yeah.
- But then you can’t get to sleep. And you start pondering life’s big questions…
- Until… Zzzzz
- But then two strangers move into your cabin in the middle of the night
- And then they start snoring. REALLY. LOUDLY. There are other sounds too. What. Is. Happening??
- And now you’re wide awake
- And you need to go to the bathroom
- But you get through the experience without getting the bottom of your pyjamas wet. Success
- And then you finally fall asleep
- When the sun comes up and you can see the glorious Vietnamese countryside
- When SUPER LOUD MUSIC is blasted through the entire train to wake everyone up
- When you pull into Hanoi station and know that a shower, toilet and iced coffee are JUST around the corner and you and your travel pals jump off the train!
Vietnam really is one of the best places to visit in Asia. Keen to discover this country? Plan a gap year to Vietnam today.