Our Journey from Da Nang to Ninh Binh, Vietnam
When we (and when I say we, I mean Michelle) are planning how we will get to our next travel destination, the first step is to decide on which form of transportation we want to use. In most cases, we choose to fly because it’s normally the fastest and in many cases depending on the distance the cheapest way to go. But flying, especially for me, is the least enjoyable way to transport ourselves and our luggage from one destination to the next, and when an opportunity presents itself to take a train, I say “all aboard, lets go”! (Even though this train was more expensive than flying as it cost us a total of $264.00)
In this particular chapter of our travels, we needed to get from Da Nang (in southern Vietnam) to Ninh Binh (in northern Vietnam) and there just happens to be a train between the two cities. Actually, this train links Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City in the south (for a total of 1726 kilometers) and it’s called the “Reunification Express”, and passes through the cities of Da Nang and Ninh Binh along the way. The train line was first completed in 1936 but was largely destroyed during both World War 2, and the Vietnam War. It wasn’t until 1976 that it started running again, but only after 1334 bridges, 27 tunnels, 158 stations, and 1370 switches were repaired within only 2 years of the war ending. It reunited the North with the South and that’s how it got its name.
Our route between Da Nang and Ninh Binh would take about 15 hours, but if you want to travel the whole line from start to finish, plan on about a 30 hour journey through an amazingly beautiful country!
Our Journey Starts Here
Actually our journey started a little before this when we first bought our tickets online for the train. We (and when I say we I mean Michelle) used a website called 12go.asia which we (and when I say we I mean Michelle) highly recommend for purchasing all of your train ticket needs while traveling throughout Asia. This website is user friendly and provides you with an E-Ticket that ensures a smooth entrance on to your train. It allows you to select the class of cabin you want, along with the choice to select your seats and overall, we (and I mean we this time) were very happy with how it worked.
When we arrived at the Da Nang train station, we simply showed the gate security guard our E-Ticket and she waved us through to the waiting area. We had a 6:10pm scheduled departure time. At about 5;40pm, an announcement was made for us to board our train. We headed out to the platform and I showed one of the train conductors our ticket. He directed us to our car (#6) so we boarded and found our private cabin.
Our First Impressions
When we walked in to our room, we were some happy campers! Both beds were clean and fairly comfortable, and we were able to squeeze our luggage underneath them which gave us enough room to get around fairly well inside. The train line had provided us with bottles of water, a few cokes, two snack boxes and a box of tissues so we felt like we were well supplied for the trip. Because we didn’t know what the food situation would be like on the train, we’d also brought some of our own snacks but we ended up not needing them. We both felt like the room we booked was exactly like what we were hoping and expecting from our (and when I say “our” I mean Michelle’s) research and from the information provided by 12go.asia. We were both excited to begin our adventure!
The Departure
Exactly on time at 6:10pm, our train began to move and we began to see the sights of Da Nang begin to scroll horizontally across the large window we had to look out. It was already beginning to get dark, so we enjoyed all of the sights we could before we got out of the city, finally closing our curtain when it was too dark to see anything else. At about this time, a train worker came down the aisle and asked us if we would like something to drink. We ordered two beers, which were very much enjoyed and settled in for our overnight trip.
The room was a little warmer than we would have liked. Even though it had air conditioning, it was very weak and so it never felt really “cool”. It was probably just a few degrees above perfect, but that meant we were never totally comfortable and in fact we slept on top or half out of our blankets throughout the night.
About an hour after our departure, another two train workers came down the aisle with a cart and asked us if we wanted dinner. We were pleasantly surprised! They offered us two big plates of noodles, beef, cabbage and vegetables. The cost was about $4.00 USD for both, and it actually filled us up enough that we didn’t need to eat again before we got off the train 14 hours later.
We were surprised to find that our train car had free wifi internet and we were able to stream a few YouTube videos before settling down for the night. We set our laptop up on the table and we both laid on the beds with our pillows on the “door” side of the cabin. In that configuration, we could both see the screen pretty well and so we watched some YouTube, then put the laptop away and got ready to go to sleep since it had been a long day.
The train car that we were on had two bathrooms, one in the front of the car and one in back. Although I didn’t get a picture of the bathroom, I can say that they were adequately clean and in decent shape with flush toilets. It also had two separate washroom areas to use to wash face/hands and to brush teeth. I was worried that only having two bathrooms might be an issue if both were being used at the same time, but I never had a problem as at least one bathroom seemed to be open at all times. The same with the washroom areas. We were always able to use them when we needed them even though our train car seemed pretty much full.
Rockin' and rollin'!!
Okay, so not every journey is perfect or “instagrammable” and here is where our fairytale adventure met reality. As I mentioned in the second paragraph, the Reunification Train Line had been severely damaged over a period of 30 years due to two big wars, then was opened only 2 years after the Vietnam war ended. Repairs were done quickly in order to “reunify” the country as rapidly as possible. But there are many areas of track that, although serviceable, are less than ideal.
Let me put it this way. If you can imagine that your train car is rolling down the tracks with square wheels on one side, and oval wheels on the other, and King Kong continuously lifts the front of your car and drops it, then picks it up again, then drops it, you will have a pretty good idea of what it’s like trying to sleep on the Reunification Train. To be fair, we were able to sleep, but it wasn’t a restful sleep because of all the bouncing around. My guess is that over a period of about 7 hours, we probably were able to sleep for a total of 2 of them. It’s called a sleeper train because it travels overnight, but honestly, it’s pretty hard to sleep and if you would have asked us during the night if we’d ever do it again, we’d have said “probably not”.
"But Joy Comes in the Morning" psalm 30:5
After our night in the bounce house and knowing that sleep would not return again, we got up at about 5:30am. Our train car had a hot water dispenser that provided piping hot water for our instant coffee and so we partook and watched the sun begin to rise. This began our favorite part of the trip!
For the next 3 hours we were amazed at what we saw out our window. We passed through beautiful mountains and rice fields and small Vietnamese towns and saw the locals on their scooters heading to work. We saw what we think were pineapple fields too. At least that’s what they looked like! I was surprised to even see some corn fields along the way. We also saw farmers, both men and women, working in the rice fields standing knee deep in water, and what struck us most about all of this was that we were getting a view out our window of these people, who have been here living their lives while we were still back in the US commuting back and forth to work everyday, never realizing that all this “life” was going on over here! It was one of those moments that you realize that even though we look different, have different cultures and live in different places, we are all human beings that are simply riding around on this planet together living our lives to the best of our abilities!
As I mentioned, if you’d have asked us during the night if we’d do this again, we’d have said no. But had you asked us that same question as we sat there watching out our window, drinking coffee after the sun came up, looking at all this life happening, our answer would have been changed to a “WHY YES WE WOULD ABSOLUTELY DO THIS AGAIN!” (We would probably however do the day train rather than the night train since we found that we can’t sleep anyway.)
About an hour before we arrived in Ninh Binh, another food cart came through and they asked us if we wanted to have breakfast. Neither of us were hungry (both, because of the big meal the previous night, and also because we had a touch of “motion sickness” from all of the bouncing around) so we felt it safer not to eat. It was about time to pack up and get ready to disembark.
We arrived safely, and got off the train at about 9:00am. I found that for a few hours afterward, I still felt like I was rocking back and forth from the train. In front of the train station there were a line of taxis ready to take passengers to our hotels and the 10 minute taxi ride cost us about $4.00 USD.
It was time to start enjoying Ninh Binh!
If you have any questions about train travel or if you’ve ever taken a train in another country, please feel free to send me a comment or question.
Safe travels everyone!
Sounds like an amazing experience