What a train ride!

I was planning to go some trip by Viet Rail
How about fare compared to flight?
Bus or train, comfortable?

I did a round trip back in 1995 on these tracks. Sat in the very economy section of the train (broke student syndrome). It was long and painful but the view was fantastic! It's been 18 years....I'm ready for another ride!

It was 36 hour each way back then. Definitely interesting to hear the changing accents along the way to know how far you'd progressed on the journey to the north. I hope these trains have seen major upgrades since then. In 1995 it was still very primitive.

We took the train to sapa in a sleeper. It was very dirty and full of people smoking. I think we may have been ripped off by our hotel as some of the other cars were a lot nicer. Trains are great if travelling over night as you get a nights accommodation  and travel while you sleep. My mother travelled by train from Hanoi to Danang and loved it.

June I went from Saigon to Hue. Sleeper, lower bunk, it was a great experience.  The views were amazing.  Food and drink service was nice and cheap. Even had an electrical outlet for my dvd player.

We took the train every summer 1992-2001 HN-SG-HN to visit family when I was young. So much fun as a child. I loved sticking my head out of the window to marvel at the whole train as it curved around the mountain. Quite a few times saw the train going under the rainbow that way. Favorite part was going through the tunnels. All the kids screamed and cheered. You could really see how beautiful the country was. For a long stretch of the central coast on one side we had the forest (yes there were trees back then) and on the other side was the blue ocean. Absolutely stunning. Such fond memories. There were also lots of dramas. People jumped train all the time so you wondered if and how they would get caught. There were quite a few incidents of rock throwing and horror stories were exchanged about who got injured and how.

In 2003, went with my sis HN-Hue. We took the local train and it was nightmarish. Delayed 7 hours. A 12-hr ride turned into 19-hr. Realized what happened with the "express train." In the beginning, "express train" north-south was 2 days, then 1.5 day, then 1.25 day. It's not b/c they run any faster, just b/c they make fewer stops, and they make all other trains like our local one stop for them whenever there is a track conflict.

A few years later, persuaded my mom to take the train north-south again out of nostalgia. It was a lot more orderly than before, but not as fun. The windows are so scratched and fogged up we could barely see anything outside, except to realize all the trees were gone.  That was our last time. Well actually there was another time with the train to Sapa. But it was a short ride, and I vowed to never take it again b/c of the collusion between ticket office agents and black market sellers. Impossible to buy tickets at the station. They're always out for all days of the week. But the moment you step away from the counter, well you know how the story goes.

edit: scariest part is going to the toilet. Was always afraid that I'd fall down yuck

I agree with the buying of tickets needs to be made easier. There are many websites selling tickets but the prices can vary greatly and you don't want to give random people your credit card details. If you are trying to buy tickets from overseas there seems to be a lot of extra money added by hotels or travel agents.

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Hello,

Yes i did it once about 5 years ago, 31 hours of freezing cold or burning heat. Apparently there is only 2 settings on the air condition and that was first class tickets for over a million.

Wow what a ride, no sleep, backed up filthy toilets, crappy food cart, smelly,compared to a Swedish cart the rooms was tiny, hard mattresses that hadn't been washed since 1980 i could go on and on but you get the point.

Lets just say i would never do it again

BUT

I am glad i did, you get to see a part of the country that is only accessible by train and the coastal stretch is amazing.

And yes i did take the 31 hour trip back to Saigon anyway.

/Andreas

we did our trip north to south in stages and mostly over night , you really have to get into your bunk pretty quick or miss out cabin service was good and regular and other travellers all polite in general, a good trip except for the caboose derailment of the train in front of our from dalat

Good to read about some of your experiences traveling on the "Iron Road" (translated from Đường Sắt, Đường = road, Sắt = iron, Đường Sắt = iron road = railroad).

I read a little bit on wiki about the Iron Road before I went on the trip to get an orientation and learn some history about the railroad system.  Here's the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Railways

AndreasVN wrote:

...
I am glad i did, you get to see a part of the country that is only accessible by train and the coastal stretch is amazing.
...

The landscape is indeed spectacular, free of buildings which have lined the national highway more so than the railroad meaning if you travel by automobile/motorbike, you're more likely going to see development than natural landscape. 

However, I was unable to freely enjoy 100% of the natural beauty because the filthy windows and the "cage" obscured about 50% of my view.  I wondered why there are cage screens on windows of the railcars. 

Was it to:
1) prevent people from entering/exiting the railcars via window instead of using the door?
2) prevent vendors from selling to passengers via window?
3) prevent passengers from sticking their heads out the window and getting smacked by a tree branch?

ngohly wrote:

... There were quite a few incidents of rock throwing and horror stories were exchanged about who got injured and how.
...

Now I know the answer.  I had guessed it maybe had to do with protection but couldn't imagine people throwing rocks at trains.  That's just like throwing rocks at busses and motorbikes.  It just doesn't pop in your head initially.

As for the dirty windows, I guess the train is geared towards functionality (i.e. moving people) than for asthestics or "value added service" (i.e. providing clean windows for passengers to enjoy the view).  Both the northbound trip and the southbound trip had filthy windows.

That was probably my biggest beef about not getting to 100% view the beautiful landscape..so I had to settle for 50%, squinting through the cage bars and the dirt specs on the windows to catch a glimps of water buffalos bathing in ponds, golden fields of rice, steep vertical mountains that have trees growing...trees can grow directly on rock?  Wow!

I found it so odd that there are shops that sell train tickets RIGHT OUTSIDE THE TRAIN STATION!  Who on Earth would buy from an "agent" 30 feet right outside the train station when you can just walk in the train station and buy it cheaper?

ngohly wrote:

...and I vowed to never take it again b/c of the collusion between ticket office agents and black market sellers. Impossible to buy tickets at the station. They're always out for all days of the week....

I guess now I know why.  In the United States, we call these Scalpers.  They probably buy up all the tickets during the Tet and other heavily traveled holidays.  When people can't buy them at the stations, then they have to go across the street to buy them from "agents".

charmavietnam wrote:

I was planning to go some trip by Viet Rail
How about fare compared to flight?
Bus or train, comfortable?

Air travel will cost more because you get there faster and bus fares will be cheaper since they have alot of competition. 

After reading many stories of bus drivers dozing off at the wheel and plunging rivers, speeding and losing control, passing wrecklessly, I think traveling by train is a safer land travel option.

Consequently, I did noticed many foreigners traveling to and from Nha Trang using the Iron Road.  The conductors speak Viet-lish (kind of like English but overwhelmingly accented by their native Vietnamese tongue making them barely understandable by foreigners and they end up just pointing to things.)  Had a conductor try to tell a foreign backpacker to go back to her assigned seats at a station stop by saying "seat number" a bunch of times then finally pointed to her ticket.  Another conductor was trying to solicit an upgrade fee from a Korean girl by asking her why she didn't buy an air conditioned seat when she was sweating in the non-air-conditioned railcar (you have to pay the conductor some "gratuities/tips" to get an upgrade).  He ended up pointing to her ticket but she just gave him a blank stare.

jimbream wrote:

Take the full trip from Ha Noi to Ho Chi Minh city and I can guarantee a dose of land sickness when you finally hop off. The swaying and the clickety clack of the the carriages really puts your body in another physical realm.

It's actually more "stable" than the busses/shuttles that transport people by the asphalt road.  By stable, I mean, the train engineer isn't speeding, driving wrecklessly to make time, passing motorbikes, driving and weaving to avoid potholes, etc.

You do get swaying and clickety clacks of the railcars but that's normal considering Vietnam's Iron Road hasn't developed to any extent comparable to the Japanese Shinkansen or the Eurorail.

sounds like you guys got some bum deals, we didnt have bars on any of our carriages,3 trains windows were dirty but not so bad as not to get some good photos, maybe the direct train is different to  short trip 1. it may also have to do with our tour guide

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In 2012 I took a group of 8 on a train trip from Saigon to Vinh in the North. I bought all the tkts directly at the Saigon station and the kind lady pointed out that as I was over 60 I was entitled to 20% discount. So I went home and got my Seniors card and returned and got my discount on an already amazing price of 1 million dong, about $50. what I did was break the journey into 4 to 5 hr segments on aircon day trains. That way we had comfortable seats and a nice view of the country side. I remember we ate a lot of boiled eggs that we bought on the train which ended up biting us on the bum as it were, so I don't recommend you do that. Lol. We would then hop off and spend 2 or 3 days exploring the area. Some places like Danang we stayed a week so that we could visit Hoi An and ride over the Hai Van Pass to Elephant Head Springs. We also did a side trip from Dong Hoi to the river caves in the Phong Nha National Park. So in conclusion I don't recommend doing the Saigon to Hanoi train trip in one go as the positive things get overridden by some of the negatives. Break the journey and you will enjoy it more.

DirtyPierre wrote:

In 2012 I took a group of 8 on a train trip from Saigon to Vinh in the North. I bought all the tkts directly at the Saigon station and the kind lady pointed out that as I was over 60 I was entitled to 20% discount. So I went home and got my Seniors card and returned and got my discount on an already amazing price of 1 million dong, about $50. what I did was break the journey into 4 to 5 hr segments on aircon day trains. That way we had comfortable seats and a nice view of the country side. I remember we ate a lot of boiled eggs that we bought on the train which ended up biting us on the bum as it were, so I don't recommend you do that. Lol. We would then hop off and spend 2 or 3 days exploring the area. Some places like Danang we stayed a week so that we could visit Hoi An and ride over the Hai Van Pass to Elephant Head Springs. We also did a side trip from Dong Hoi to the river caves in the Phong Nha National Park. So in conclusion I don't recommend doing the Saigon to Hanoi train trip in one go as the positive things get overridden by some of the negatives. Break the journey and you will enjoy it more.

Nice to get some respect for being an old fart doesn't it? 

Your idea of breaking the trip in 4-5 segments is an excellent idea.  Both the to and return trip passed through Đà Nẵng in the middle of the night so I didn't get to see anything about this remarkable city (so I've read).

Being an old fart has its advantages.
When I took a group of people to Dam Sen Water Park in HCMC I got in for free when I showed them my Seniors card.

DirtyPierre wrote:

Being an old fart has its advantages.
When I took a group of people to Dam Sen Water Park in HCMC I got in for free when I showed them my Seniors card.

Yah, the Vietnamese culture highly respects the elderly.

That's how I met my Kim. The family I had lived with for 6mths insisted I celebrate my 60th birthday. I told them I gave up birthdays at 15. They wouldn't take no for an answer and Kim was invited and it was love at first sight.

In 2008 we met the wife's family in Hanoi. They had traveled up from Saigon by train. We later traveled to Lao Cai by rail, a long trip with at least one change of locomotive. The smoker problem noted was there, but since half of them were family there wasn't much I could do, other than move into the top bunk of the women's compartment. We had paid first class, so we definitely got ripped off. Later we traveled from Hanoi thru Hue to Nha Trang. It gave me great pleasure to see that all the cars were marked "Hanoi - Hue - Saigon" instead of TPHCM. So much for a name change that no Saigonese wanted. The first class cars on this trip were indeed far more comfortable, though the reclining chairs were a bit small for a 5'10" westerner.

Train travel can be weather dependent. On our first trip to Hanoi, also meeting relatives who had come up by rail, their return leg was marooned in Central Vietnam somewhere due to floods ahead on the track. It was interesting seeing the regional contrasts. Whereas water buffalo have almost disappeared from Hau Giang rice paddies in preference to tractors, they were quite visible in Northern Central Vietnam. Nice for nostalgia, but perhaps at the economic expense of the locals.

Hopefully Vietnam will soon be able to modernize its rail. During the construction of Korea's high speed rail several years back, one of the inspecting engineers was an expatriate Vietnamese named Bao, a Swiss citizen who had graduated from France's prestigious Ponts et Chaussees. His job was doing the quality checks that kept the Korean contractors honest. Vietnam's terrain would be a challenge, but such a rail line would be a boon to Vietnam's economy.

DirtyPierre. you do realize that the 60th Birthday is especially noted in all East Asian cultures, no? If they hadn't wanted to mark it, they wouldn't really have had much regard for you.

The family I was living with nursed me when I had a case of N1H1 and refused to accept any money for the medicine they bought me. The mother was a retired pharmacist. I am eternally indebted to them for the kindness they showed me.