Another train ride

All the sights in and around Hue seen, time to move on further south. This means another train ride but thankfully during the daytime and no need to climb under dubious blankets and sleep on even more dubious sheets! The trip from Hue to Nha Trang was about 9 hours.

The first part of the journey was a spectacular climb up mountains by the sea on the way to Danang -- this 50km section took over 2 hours but the snail-paced speed of the train was more than offset by the magnificent views.

Our fellow passenger was a local business man who seemed to be making the trip all the way from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh but we were not sure because we were unable to communicate verbally. He was a pleasant enough chap but did not seem to understand what the non-smoking signs in the compartment meant!

We ate train food on this leg and it was OK'ish I suppose. I was a little worried about food hygiene but it seemed OK. The ubiquitous cans of beer to wash it down were on hand. So far my use of beer as a prophylactic against a dodgy tummy seemed to be working well.

After Danang we went through mile after mile of very fertile farm land. There was some rice harvesting going on - all of it by hand! We also seemed to pass tens of cemeteries with hundreds if not thousands of graves/tombs - all brightly coloured. There were also tombs in groups of 5-10 in many paddy fields too.

The train arrived in Nha Trang just about on time - another impressive performance by Vietnam Railways. We were met by a pre-arranged taxi and headed off for our hotel in the opposite direction of most of our fellow travellers. They were heading off to the beach hotels while we were heading inland for what we hoped would be a lovely rural retreat...