Vietnam - Night Train

Today we were going to the beach at Phan Thiet, one of the few places everyone agreed it was safe for us to go to by bike. We went downstairs about 9 to find that the bikes weren't there and they'd been cancelled because we was still in bed at 8 so they didn't think we'd want them. Great, thanks.

It's just as well though as the same people who had been recommending Phan Thiet have now decided that it's rubbish and don't understand why we don't take the night train to Nha Trang. Well for a start we've been asking about trains every day and no one has mentioned them before plus everyone says that Phan Thiet was too far which is only about 1/3 of the distance of Nha Trang!

We're happy to go to Nha Trang though, it's meant to be pretty good there, great beaches, lots to do, etc. So we've booked the overnight train, we just have to hope that we can fit into the Vietnamese sized beds!

Once that was started we went for a fat bastard special at the Spotted Cow down the road, man that was a good breakfast; steak, sausage, bacon, bread, chips, eggs, and grilled tomato.

Suitably stuffed we went for a stroll to the park to relax and grab a cool drink. The man that would not take no for an answer pleaded to clean Mark's shoes. Short of kicking him in the face, he wouldn't leave to we decided to move on instead.

We thought it would be a good time to demonstrate the techniques for crossing the road, so take a look at the video here to see how it's done.

We then did some research (well Tim did, Mark played on his phone) on the hotel in Nha Trang and got that all sorted, so we packed and got ready for the trip.

We'd arranged to meet our tour guide from yesterday for some food as we'd spent most of the day winding her up. After several coded messages we finally found the cafe she was in. We had a laugh and went for some traditional Vietnamese food in a small place down an alley.

Tim had five courses of gorgeous seafood while Mark had some reformed beef thing that resembled mud mixed with mince. It only cost £2 though so it was value for money. It was a nice evening that we had to cut short to catch the night train, so we hot footed it across town to the station.

It was the sleeper train, so we had a bed each, although it wasn't exactly spacious it was better than we thought. The train left at 11pm and was due in at 5:30am, so we were keen to get some sleep although there were another 18 people in our cabin at one point. We both got a few hours before arriving in Nha Trang just as the sun was rising.