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What can we say?! We were told the journey would be 11 hours and thought that would be bad but it turned out to be 16 hours on a sleeper train, cramped onto a 3rd level bunk, big enough for a midget. We didn't even have enough space to sit up and Lisa didn't have a mattress (only a thin piece of foam anyway). It was pure hell and the longest day of my life - never to be repeated. The train cuts straight through the towns and cities with no railings or embankments, merging into homes and streets. We were too tired to hunt for a decent hotel so booked into a dump, managed a few beers and some food before collapsing into a rock hard bed. Hanoi is chaotic and incredibly noisy with the sound of millions of horns. The buildings pile onto each other in an incomprehensible maze and it is impossible to walk on the narrow pavements as they are filled with motorbikes and people sitting on tiny plastic chairs or mats eating meals. The smells assault and catch your throat, especially the meat being prepared on every corner. The constant stream of hawkers and street vendors is tedious - there is a very apt saying here, 'same, same but different' which perfectly describes the endless tat for sell. It is very cloudy and humid so everything is damp including the beds and toilet paper. It takes a while to adjust and tackle crossing the crazy roads with traffic coming at you from all directions but we enjoy wandering and find a better hotel without water running down the walls. Our cultural input is a theatre visit to see the traditional Vietnamese water puppet show, originating over a thousand years ago by rice field farmers. The show doesn't seem to have developed much over that time and an hour was enough although the water buffalo puppet was quite endearing.
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