Vietnam from south to north
Ho Chi Minh City, still known to many as Saigon, is packed with life. City parks are full of people power walking, playing badminton, and even doing after-work aerobics classes. Thousands of motorbikes sweep through the city streets, spilling onto sidewalks. People sip beer and slurp pho at outdoor restaurants, and vendors call out to passersby.
Though we’re by no means city people, we rather liked it.
Just an hour or so south of Saigon, the Mekong River splits into nine massive branches, each with a complex network of tiny canals, tributaries, and streams. We were excited to see what the river we crossed into Laos three weeks ago had become.
Our destination, Ben Tre, turned out the be a nondescript city sprawled out along polluted water — far from the small riverside community we were picturing. Luckily, a man on a motorbike pulled up as we stood dejectedly on the sidewalk and flashed a brochure for his guesthouse, 13 kilometers out of town. Set in a sweet-smelling orchard with small ponds and plenty of hammocks, it was just what we were looking for.
We borrowed two rickety bikes and set off down the street, past tiny towns and orchards and over small bridges spanning canals. On the return journey, school let out, and the narrow street was suddenly filled with schoolchildren in their uniforms, two or three to a bike. It was an ideal way to spend an afternoon.
The following day we took our friendly innkeeper up on a boat tour around the area, which led us down narrow canals fringed with overhanging water coconut branches, and out onto the main river. Wide and muddy as the Mississippi, it’s hard to believe there are eight more branches flowing into the South China Sea.
Back in Saigon, we stuffed our stomachs and bags with French pastries in preparation for a 40-hour train journey to northern Vietnam. Yes, a plane would certainly be quicker, more comfortable, perhaps even cheaper, but there’s something in the ability to trace the curved coastline of Indochina on a map and remember covering every inch of it on the ground.
On a line dubbed the Reunification Express, trains cover 1,079 miles of track between Saigon and Hanoi. We shared a four-berth sleeper cabin with a quiet Vietnamese couple for the first 644 of them, and were quite enchanted with the whole thing. We passed the time reading, watching movies, and being pulled in and out of sleep by the rumbling of the train.
A peek inside our cabin.
When the sun rose, it revealed miles and miles of vibrant green rice fields rolling by. Farmers in conical hats stooped to tend the rice and steered plows pulled by water buffalo. White cranes burst out of the greenery and flew alongside the train on its journey north. After passing Danang, the train tracks veered to the curving edge of the ocean. Peering down from our bunks, we watched waves crashing on the rough rocky shore, dotted with wide, honey-colored beaches. (more…)
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