‘Nam by train.

The insistent beeps of my phone alarm jolted us awake at dawn as we prepared to leave Ho Chi Minh City on the train to the coastal town of Nah Trang. It truly is a city that never sleeps and the hustle and bustle of traffic had well and truly begun as we groggily emerged from our narrow alley into the dark of the street. Taxi haggled for and ridden we arrived at the station and boarded the train that we would sit on for 8 hours. Once our packs were safely stored above us, we settled in for quite an enjoyable overland trip. The crumbling houses and terraces of the city that literally hugged the train line started to give way to an agricultural landscape with periodic tin shacks and outer limit graveyards. The further on we went, the more the rice fields started to line up as they huddled beneath the rising craggy peaks of modest mountains. Felicity opined that you get the truest impression of a country via its rural spaces. You certainly see the physical toil etched on the furrowed faces that glance up at you at the train whistles past. I actually saw a man ploughing a field with a steel plough harnessed to an ox.

The seats in the carriage reclined nicely and snack carts and even hot food came past at intervals to ease early morning travel grumbles from the stomach. Having sleep for the first few hours I then divided my attention in equal parts between the changing scenery outside, X-Men II on the TV halfway down the carriage and a dodgy photocopied version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in my hand. Having packed a fair bit of activity into our days since we left Singapore (as well as the mania prior) it was quite nice to relax in a tired but quite workable and mostly comfortable train. I quite driving at home, I love the immediacy of horseback and motorcycle riding but sometimes there’s nothing quite like letting someone else do the driving while you watch new landscapes unfurl before your eyes.