Be prepared for almost anything except maybe peace and quiet when catching a train in Vietnam. Our four weeks of travel through this country was mainly completed by train, with the odd taxi and a couple of boat trips to add a bit of excitement. Our 1,200 miles of rail travel was done in Soft Class air conditioned seats with the exception of the trip to Haiphong which was in Hard Class with air conditioning.

Our journey with Vietnamese Railways started in Ho Ch Minh City (or HCMC or Saigon) on train SPT2, the 06.40 departure to Phan Thiet, which took three and three quarter hours. Phan Thiet is the closet railway station to the popular beach resort of Mui Ne and even at this hour the tran was packed, however this probably should not have been a surprise given there are just two trains a day with the second departing HCMC at 17.40. This was our first introduction to Rail TV, a hideous addition to travel by train in Vietnam, which despite next to no one in the coach watching continued to blast out music videos, the same four or five adverts repeated at least three times and Vietnamese soap operas. Most people really just wanted to sleep!

Phan Thiet sits at the end of a short branch line off the main line linking HCMC and the capital Hanoi. The branch leaves the main line at Binh Thuan and our second journey started from there (as there is no connection into any northbound train if you wished to travel from Phan Thiet) to Dieu Tri on train SE8 departing at 09.30 and arriving at just before 17.30. Dieu Tri was the closest station to Quy Nhon (again, no connection even though Quy Nhon has a station) which was our chosen destination for no other reason that this was s sensible time to get off the train and there was a decent hotel! Travelling on this train for 280 miles it was amazing to see what people carried with them, there were plastic bin bags galore, boxes, travel bags and not forgetting a huge bunch of coconuts. There was nowhere for those coconuts to go other than in a bay of four seats which meant leg room was certainly non existent for those who were already sat there - what did impress was that nobody chuntered, complained or even raised an eyebrow, this is obviously an everyday experience on Vietnamese Railways.

From our hotel in Quy Nhon it was a short taxi ride back to Dieu Tri and our third experience of Vietnamese Railways. Train SE4 was scheduled to depart at 08.46 to Danang with an arrival time around 14.00 so this was a fairly short journey of just five and a quarter hours. Danang is the stopping off point for people wishing to visit the UNESCO Heritage Listed city of Hoi An which is about 35km away by car. Another feature that is noticeable about travel on trains in Vietnam is the amount of seat swapping. You need a reservation to travel and seats are clearly numbered but it is a bit like being at an American baseball game, people seem to be constantly on the move from seat to seat. Maybe it is a type of musical chairs tied in with the rotating adverts on Rail TV for the ACB (a bank), Miranda orange drink, ActiPro milk or ACB, Miranda orange drink . . . . clearly we did not know the rules or join in this game!

After visiting Hoi An we were ready for a trip on train SE2, the 12.46 from Danang to Hue arriving at 15.31. Trains on the HCMC to Hanoi route (and vice-versa) take between 31 and 38 hours to make the complete journey with the five even numbered trains running northbound and the five odd numbered trains making the journey south every day. The nearly 1,100 mile journey is, with the exception of a number of passing loops, a single track railway and to be honest they seem to run a fairly reliable railway with freight and passenger services crossing each other. We experienced no delay over ten minutes. We were lucky that on one train the Rail TV screens were removed and what a relief that was initially. But our travelling companions seem to like noise, if they are not talking loudly to each other and this is normally to their travel buddy who is also involved in the game of musical chairs then they were on their mobile phones, presumably shouting the equivalent of "I am on the train, can you hear me?" Yes we can!

This section of route however probably has some of the best scenery with the train climbing out of Danang, skirting the coast on tight curves at fairly low speed. We were unfortunately sat on the wrong side for the best views, however it was still a very nice bit of railway to travel on and broke up the rice paddy fields and water buffalo views that we had for much of the trip.

Our next journey, again on train SE2, from Hué to Dong Hoi was one of our shortest of the trip of around 100 miles taking three hours so not a huge amount of time to enjoy the on board facilties. Speaking of facilities the Soft Class carriages are fitted with Asian (squatting pan) and Western style toilets and if you choose the wrong end of the coach for a toilet and get a squatting pan just pop to the other end of the coach for something more familiar. Remember to take some toilet paper with you to dry the seat as it is customary to wash down the whole room after each use! There is also catering at your seat with a trolley service serving drinks and snacks plus a hot food trolley selling rice, vegetable and meat dishes. What I could not understand was why the trolley always seemed to be working its way through the coach as we approached a station especially when there were normally stops only every hour or two - it is probably not worth trying to work it out! If the official food being sold did not take your fancy there was a good bet that someone would jump on at a station stop to sell something like grapes or dried squid . . . . or you could always take your own snacks!

From Dong Hoi, which offered very little for tourists, we travelled for just over eight hours north on train SE6, the 09.16 departure, which got us to Ninh Binh at just before 16.30 and another 250 miles covered. Ninh Binh was the only station we arrived at where taxis did not outnumber passengers. Normally it was a bit of a scrum to get through the waiting drivers that were keen to get your business - generally we found it cheaper to avoid the plentiful green and white MaiLinh taxis when arriving at stations and go for a different company. All taxis seemed to show their rate for the first kilometre and then the rate for the next thirty kilometres on the door. Generally the taxi metre will start automatically - only once did we have a driver attempt to not use the metre so we just got out as he wanted an exorbitant rate for what was a short trip . . . . . although the next one seemed keen to hide the taxi metre with his hat! As a rule of thumb the taxis were around 10-12,000 Vietnamese Dong (or about 35p) per kilometre so with a bit of checking on Google Maps you can get an idea of both cost and distance before you get to the station. .

So it was just one one final push with us joining train SE8, the 13.14 departure from Ninh Binh, to Hanoi arriving at a civilised 15.33. Given all the eateries close to Ninh Binh station we ate before catching the train for the final 70 miles of our south to north trip which had seen us travel on seven different trains.

Once in Hanoi there was just the matter of getting out to Cat Ba Island so we could experience the limestone karsts in the Halong Bay area. Most tourists do this by bus from the capital to Haiphong or Halong City, but there is a train service and we travelled on train HP1, the 06.00 departure from Hanoi to Haiphong (arriving at 08.15) that enabled us to catch the 09.00 hydrofoil to Cat Ba Town taking 45 minutes. As we boarded the train we were met by loud Vietnamese dance music blasting out in the coach at 05.45, at a different time this would possibly have been OK, but not really before breakfast and definitely not on a train.

We had already booked our return journey from Haiphong to Hanoi based on information we had before we left the UK about the hydrofoil timetable but there were additional departures so extra tickets were purchased at Haiphong railway station on our way back giving us a more sociable arrival into Hanoi of 17.30 rather than 21.05 - this was a good three pounds each well spent.

There have been some interesting sights as we made this journey through Vietnam, from the mouse scuttling around your feet and onto the chair on the second train, to the odd cockroach, beetle or bug through to a cockerel which although boxed seemed confused about what time of day it was. Vietnamese Railways regulations stated that not only are live animals banned from trains but also the transportation of dead bodies was not allowed and we just thought the chap with his legs up the wall, lying on the floor with his head in the corridor was sleeping - maybe he wasn't!

I doubt that there will be second trip on this route as we took seven days to do what could be done in just over two hours on a plane (and not cost a great deal more!) but that probably would not have allowed us to experience such a wide cross section of local people and behaviours. Nor would we have seen the countryside, something that the train is best at doing and it is certainly much more preferable to being on a bus.