Hurry up and Hue

The main mood in Vietnam right now is of anxiety, anticipation and last minute shopping.

To an Westerner, it smells of the week just before Christmas: everyone is running around stocking up on festive stuff: brightly colored gift baskets, seasonal foods, loads of treats in red packaging, large, potted kumquat trees and flowering peaches. There are special banners, displays and promotions on every possible space, from public buildings to Coca-Cola cans.

Vietnam Airlines took me from Saigon up to Hue. The flight is a little over an hour; Hue is about halfway up the country. It was supposed to have been an all-night train ride, but there were no train seats to be had, being so close to Tet and all. For about $10 more, I caught a flight. Vietnam Airlines is a wonderful airline, by the way. World class. Highly recommended. (They will be adding SFO and LAX soon)

We arrived in to rain, rain that continued through the night. The entire population was bedecked in plastic ponchos. It looked like the entire country had been taken over by Smurfs.

The crappy weather didn't matter to me, I was just there to see my buddy Tin, who I had met last year.

The next morning I met up with Tin and spent the time catching up, pondering life and trying to stay out of the rain. We talked at length, gave each other earnest, personal advice, and, just like last year, I neglected to see any of Hue's sights. We did do a chore though: he helped me to get a train ticket from Hue up to Hanoi. A "soft sleeper", upper bunk. The fare for a "soft sleeper" ticket on the all night train up to Hanoi is about $30.

That afternoon, we sat outside the station in a sidewalk cafe drinking high octane Vietnamese coffee and smoking Vietnamese filter tips. We were in no hurry, the train was unusually late due to the holiday crunch. We chatted until my train was called for boarding. We ran through puddles with my luggage, found the right carriage and I climbed aboard. Tin shook my hand and made me promise to call him soon.

I found my compartment, found a conductor to verify that I was in the right place, but promptly got scolded and was literally pushed off the train by an angry man in a green uniform. I had boarded the wrong train, the earlier SE2 instead of the train that I had a ticket for, the SE4. I wasn't the only one who had screwed up, the ticket checkers along the way had let me pass through by mistake.

I walked back to the car park with my tail between my legs. Tin was still there, drinking coffee and smoking White Horse cigarettes. He was horrified when he saw me, but once I told him what had happened, he was mortified for making such a mistake and losing face.

It gave me a chance to drink more strong coffee and chat, so it wasn't all that bad.
The train eventually showed up, a mere hour and a half late. This time, I got on the correct train, found the correct carriage and a friendly conductor pointed out the location of my bunk.

I was convinced I was going to get thrown off of this train as well.

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