We made it!

A distance of 500 miles from Da Nang to Hanoi in 18 hours and 20 minutes!! 10 stops in total. Why so long considering only 500 miles? The train only does a maximum of we think 40mph...a snail's pace. There ain't no express trains here!

Ok..so it wasn't quite the Orient Express. I think we must have hyped up the train description to the kids a bit too far. "It's TINY! I thought we had a carriage!" were the words muttered once we found our cabin...carriage 8, cabin 28.

I took a peek..OMG, it was indeed tiny, not what I was expecting either! At that moment I also regretted not getting the silk sleeping bags at the market for $5 each! Hey ho. We are going to be spending many hours here..positive thinking! To be honest, once we settled ourselves into our 6 by 6 ft berth, it wasn't actually that bad! Kids made an adventure of it! I was just relieved we were not going to be subjected to constant Vietnamese music in the background!

Very interesting views for the first two hours..a major bridge construction, little villages then right into the countryside, which up until now we have not really seen before.

7. 30pm . The much anticapated pot noodle dinner! Sooo Damian and the kids spent 10 mins figuring out how they were in fact going to eat these! We didn't think cutlery! (the Bambers don't do pot noodles)
Problem resolved...they would use the 10cm fish descaler from Damian's Swiss army pen knife! Only snag would be only one can eat at a time! They decide to share one and take it in turns to have a slurp. (I have decided pot noodles are just not for me)

Hot water obtained from cabin 6. Kids come back very excited.." mummy, there is a plastic fork in the pot noodle lid" how obvious..Doh!
Chicken pot noodle verdict - Jake gives it a very high 7 out of 10, Emma, 5.

To fill out the hours, kids update their travel journal, watch a film on the iPad, Damian and I read...

9pm. Lights out.

Hmmm. A lot of tossing and turning on my part. At times when the train sped up, it felt like it wasn't in control and you could hear every single track creak very loudly as we passed , perhaps in pitch blackness the noises were exaggerated! I did grumble to Damian a few times "why didn't we just fly. It would only have taken an hour!!!"
His response, "this is fun! Kids are fast asleep. It's a good experience and it's half the cost!"
Damian has brought his north face silk sleeping bag...he is fine!

6.45am...We are all awake and wow what a stunning view we have as we look out. We are in the deep deep countryside, rice fields everywhere, people ploughing their land, mountains in the background and clear blue skies. Amazing!
Short bread biscuits for breakfast.

The last few hours went relatively quickly. Jake requested more pot noodles. Emma and I resisted going to the toilet. Our bladders were at bursting point!
Damian read up on Hanoi. Lots do to...

Now having lunch in the Hotel cafe . We have all freshened up, bladders relieved :-)
Once lunch is done, lots of sight seeing to do...

Px

Damian said if we ever did this trip again, next time we could take the ferry from Da Nang to Hanoi, a journey that would take 2 and a half days and be even cheaper! A DEFINITE ... NO!