It is probably not particularly fair to compare the two kinds of trains. But I have travelled now on both for an overnight journey and the difference is vast. On a Chinese train, there are a number of classes. One can sit on a hard seat, which is really hard, but not so bad for a short journey. A soft seat is much nicer for a long journey, but still not suitable (for me, at least) for an overnight journey. Overnight journeys require sleepers. Of those, there are two kinds, hard sleepers and soft sleepers. Hard sleepers have fairly thin mats on the beds, but are quite comfortable. However they are in cars that resemble cattle cars. There are just rows of three tier bunks going the length of the train car. It is a great way to meet the locals though. I always preferred the highest bunk. They were the ones that would require the greatest work to get my stuff while I slept. Most people prefer the bottom bunks because they are at the bottom and probably more comfortable.
Then there are the soft sleepers. These are cabins in the train car. Each cabin has four beds, two sets of bunks. The mattresses are much thicker and more comfortable. And there is a door on the cabin. It is much higher class.
I suppose I had this in mind when I chose the soft sleeper for my trip to Hanoi. I don't really know what hard seats are like on a Vietnamese train, but I don't really want to experience it. I sat on a soft seat from Da Nang to Hue and it was pretty rough. Hard sleepers were not really recommended by anyone for the journey to Hanoi, so I chose the soft sleeper. It was not so nice. It was a thin mattress with a pillow and a blanket. We had a door on the cabin, but there was air conditioning on so high, that through the night it really got quite cold. Uncomfortably so. I imagine it must be useful during the day for it to be set like that, but the night needs to be adjusted. I was sorely disappointed. But then I realized that there were actually two classes of soft sleeper, the foreigner class, and the higher income Vietnamese class. The difference was 10 dollars, so I chose the lower class one. I have heard reports that the foreigner soft sleeper tickets were much nicer. Oh well.
Another error I made was in the time of the train that I took to Hanoi. I chose the train leaving in the early afternoon. I had hoped to be able to see some of the countryside as we chugged along. The problem was that the train arrived in Hue late, so there was less time for countryside viewing. And it was countryside that I had seen from the bus the previous day on the DMZ tour. And then we arrived in Hanoi at 4 in the morning. I would have much better choosing the evening train and arriving at 11 in the morning. Then I would have had the chance to see countryside around Hanoi instead. Oh well.
As it was, the train got in at 4. I was supposed to have someone waiting for me from a hotel in town. They were going to be waiting with a sign with my name on it. I got off the train and stepped out of the station. I looked around, through the many, many, MANY taxi and moto drivers, all trying to get my attention to take me somewhere. And I saw no sign with my name. I waited around for a while dodging drivers, some of whom were quite persistent to the point of being annoying. After about 20 minutes, I got frustrated and annoyed and decided to leave. I heard later from Dung at my hotel in Hue that the Hanoi hotel called her and they were angry with her because I hadn't showed up and they had waited a long time. I don't know where they were, but I was at the station and I didn't see them.
I began walking and hoping to find a place to stay, but it was pretty early and I didn't remember the map I had seen of the central Hanoi area. Despite not being overly sure of where I was going, I did in fact end up in the hotel district of the Old Hanoi area and I found a little hotel that was open at 7 in the morning. I checked in and began trying to figure out how to get a tour of Ha Long Bay arranged. And then I took a short rest before going out to see some of Hanoi since I had the whole day for that.
No comments:
Post a Comment