We left Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) on the sleeper train for our 36 hour, two night trip, to Hanoi at 7.30 in the evening. We boarded the train a half hour before we left and found our compartment. The train looked very dirty and well used on the outside. Inside the compartments had four beds, two up two down. Our initial impression was that the bedding looked clean, which is always a good start. Chris was on the top and I had the lower bunk which was facing to the rear of the train. The other two bunks were occupied by two Vietnamese, an elderly gentleman on the top and a lady underneath neither spoke English and did not want to chat. It was very cold in the compartment as the aircon was working too well. We had brought our food with us as there was a hot water boiler and fresh water at the end of the carriage and dined on noodles and bananas, followed by sweets. It gets dark around 5.30 pm at this time of year so there was nothing to see out the window but the lit up streets we were slowly negotiating through the city, the track passing open shop fronts and houses giving us an opportunity to grasp a quick snapshot of the daily lives of the Vietnamese, eating, working, peeing, you get the picture? We settled down for the night In the compartment and tried to get some sleep but it was difficult as it was so cold and the train jostled and swayed so much that it felt as if you were being roughly shaken by the shoulder all night, punctuated by announcements that we were stopping at stations and then lurching to a sudden halt. I am sure the train driver had a sadistic streak as his stopping and starting was very erratic.

We woke bleary eyed but looking forward to watching the scenery go by. Some of the scenery was very spectacular as we hugged the coast of Vietnam working our way north, however it rained a lot and and looked very dark and thunderous at times. During the day we realised we were sharing the compartment with cockroaches which would meander around the walls and disappear into the many crevasses - oh joy we thought as we had been blissfully unaware the previous night and had another night on the train before we arrived next morning. Our two Vietnamese companions left the train early in the day so we had the rest of the day to ourselves with the occasional interruption by a guard selling food which we declined as we had brought our own (thank goodness). The guard came in later in the day to fold the bedding neatly for the next passengers, we just looked at each other and then at the bedding wrapped around us, shrugged and went back to reading our tablets trying to ignore the occasional scurry of a cockroach across the table.
Later that night we were quietly dozing and there was a knock on the door and a Vietnamese young man took the bunk that Chris was using on the bottom, and he had to go back up top again. Whilst he was doing this he made the mistake of shining the torch behind the curtains and realised just how many cockroaches there were! We finally pulled into Hanoi at 6.15 in the morning. As Chris said it was an interesting experience, but he wouldn't want to repeat it - if there ever was a next time we would definitely take a plane!