9th March: Danang, Vietnam to Hue, Vietnam

We began the day with breakfast in the hotel. Something about the building, the corridors, the lift, and the breakfast buffet reminded us of our first hotel in East Asia. We remembered how wide-eyed we were when arriving in Beijing five months ago and how much we’d explored there. We’re a bit more tired now and preferring the chilled vibe but I want that feeling again soon of being excited about visiting a new part of the world.

Around the corner from the hotel, I picked up a very strong and ridiculously sweet black coffee for 50p and just got back before some heavy smizzle drifted in obscuring the view of the Han. It’s been threatening for days, but we’re still yet to get wet (except for from dragons!). Fortunately, this didn’t last long either and we headed back to the train station in the dry.

This section of the Reunification Line is supposed to be the most beautiful. We’d gotten lucky with our seats – forward facing on the coast side, with an actual window not a metal panel! These were the final two seats when we’d booked and the numbering / direction is apparently random, so we didn’t know if we’d have good seats or bad. Still, we had to fight for the view. As is customary at this point, I pushed the blinds up, somebody else pulled them down, and I immediately pushed them back up. Half of the beauty of train travel is the slowly unfolding views, and this is something I’m always willing to argue to the hilt about (even if having to do so causes me intense anxiety). If you want to sleep, you can put an eye mask on instead. It’s the lowest hanging fruit of decent human behaviour to not do something which affects other people when there is an option that just impacts you but still gets the same result. The same goes for playing anything out loud when earbuds exist, but I fear I’ve already lost that battle! These things, along with the beeping and uncovered coughing which surely come from the same thought process, are basically the only negatives about Vietnam (and China) for me. I’m yet to square these things with how friendly and awesome the people are. They’re obviously not seen as negative behaviours in either culture, which is definitely something I need to read more into to understand properly. For now, I’ll just try to deal with them without having another panic attack.

The route around Danang bay was incredible. The train line followed the outline of the coast, along headlands and coves, meaning that inexplicably the city we’d come from kept appearing in front of us! Our long train snaked through dense foliage high above golden beaches and rocky wave-crashed outcrops. We travelled at a snail’s pace, being only 20km from Danang as the crow flies 2 hours into our journey! I wouldn’t have wanted to travel any faster though. This was spectacular.

One thing that I found hilarious, and baffling was that the person in front obviously loved the view too and got lots of photos. She then swapped with her friend, who took photos before also then pulling the blind down on some of the most breath-taking views any of us had probably ever seen. This time, I felt very vindicated in my instant pulling it back up for us and the dozen or so other people craning their necks to catch glimpses!

Before Hue, the scenery mellowed somewhat as the topography levelled with rice fields stretching to the distance. Arriving in Hue a little late, we were taken aback by the breadth of architecture in a city many people had said to avoid. Everything from traditional dwellings, through colonial buildings, to spectacular examples of modernism could be seen on our journey to the hotel.

Again, we’re only stopping for one night in Hue to break up the journey north before tomorrow’s sleeper train. We do have more than 24 hours though, so shall try to get a feel for the place.

Hungry, we popped around the corner for stir-fried bok choy with mushrooms, and fried tofu with lemongrass. The food is gradually becoming more similar to Chinese cuisine as we head north. After this, we wrapped up warm on another cloudy and tepid afternoon to walk the south bank of the Perfume River. This waterway is apparently known as such because of the number of petals which fall into it upstream in autumn. It wasn’t fragrant today, at least not in a pleasant way. The leaden skies thickened further and seemed full of rain, so we turned back towards town. Along the way we admired the beautiful modernist Education University and football stadium, in which a match was just finishing. Somehow, we still remained dry! Hopefully that luck holds tomorrow too.