Vietnam - The Prison Train & The Cockroach Cafe

Laurie Weed's Portfolio Travel Writing Asia Blog Index

Asia Update 5: Vietnam – The Prison Train and the Cockroach Café

August 2002

Hanoi is unexpectedly charming. Orderly, tree-lined streets and flower gardens surround the French Colonial buildings, pagodas, and lakes. The air is surprisingly clean and the Old Quarter is packed with museums, historical buildings, art galleries, and restaurants of every variety -- even an Opera House. Food is cheap and delicious. Everything we sample is outstanding, whether we’re squatting on ridiculous, toddler-sized plastic stools at the sidewalk pho joints, or dining upscale in candlelit expat hangouts. On the first day, we’re already talking about extending our visas, in spite of the staggering heat.

Under the peaceful demeanor, unpleasant residue from The American War is unavoidable. Despite my personal anti-war sentiment, some of the Socialist propaganda unsettles me. Museum references to “The American Aggressors”, and evidence of our war crimes, are abundant. On the street, history is just that and the Vietnamese are friendly towards us, but this is poor country and the hassle factor is high. Everyone here is selling, scamming, harassing, hustling and begging for the almighty dollars. After 10 days, we are exhausted by the relentless questioning, the frantic jockeying for sales:

“Where you from?”

“Where do you stay?”

“You want motorbike?”

“Cyclo?”

“Taxi?”

“Where do you go today?”

“And now where do you go?”

“And now...?”

Since I really liked traveling by train through Malaysia and Thailand, I book Second Class Sleeper tickets to Hue without a qualm. A slow rail journey is a great way to see the countryside; we’ll arrive in Hue relaxed and rested. It doesn’t occur to me that train travel in Vietnam could be very different from the rest of Asia, although I do notice that the trains here appear even dirtier and more dilapidated than in Thailand, which is not exactly up to first-world standards.

After hauling our luggage on board, Craig rushes off to buy water and snacks for the 17-hour journey, while I mind the bags and appraise the facilities of the Reunification Express. Instead of the expected soft seats that convert into cozy, curtained bunks at night, the second-class coach is divided into tiny boxes. Each box contains four cots apiece, bolted onto the walls, prison-style. In keeping with this theme, all the windows are covered with rusted steel grille and the doors between the cars are padlocked shut.

While the ancient train stands still, 45 minutes behind schedule, the ventilation system is off and the prison-box is an unhygienic sauna. I linger in the hallway, gasping air through the grille, and wonder idly if we’ll get the cell to ourselves. Alas, we’re wrestling our massive bags into the toy-sized storage compartment when an English guy wanders in and confirms that he is sleeping in here as well. Just sleeping, though -- he assures us he’ll spend most of the evening playing cards with his friends down the hall.

We wait, dripping sweat, for the train to depart. When a bell signals final boarding, I foolishly assume that no one else will be joining our cramped slumber party and I sit down on the empty lower bunk. Within seconds, an entire Vietnamese family swarms in, chattering loudly and hauling stools and thermoses as though they intend to set up their dining room in the 18-inch floor space...which in fact, they do. The new roomies don’t seem to speak English, and a tense pantomime develops when they attempt to remove our tightly wedged bags to make way for their belongings. (Uh...no, the people who PAID for these magnificent accommodations get to use the luggage storage, see...?) Once that’s settled, all we can do is retire to our assigned upper bunks and wait for the conductor to throw them out.

At last, the train creaks forward and the antique fans begin to churn the steam around. When the conductor stops in to collect tickets, the family of five has magically diminished to two, one of whom appears to be mortally ill. Apparently, the sick woman holds the swankier prison-class ticket, but the sister/cousin needs to stay and take care of her even though she only holds a third-class ticket (in the cattle car? I can only presume...) As soon as the uninterested official moves on, the rest of the family immediately reappears and they commandeer the ground level of the cell, marooning us to solitary confinement under the ceiling.

Fortunately, we are stocked with headphones, music and books. By the time the guards arrive with the swill several hours later, I am actually rather amused by the whole scene. The English guy returns late that night and seems unsurprised to find two Vietnamese women snoring away in his bed. He prods them awake and they depart, grumbling, taking their patio furniture and dishes. Now that we’re down to a mere five inmates, (and sans dining room,) the cell is relatively cozy and I fall asleep. When I wake up, the Englishman is comatose and the Vietnamese family is gone. I descend just as the cell door bangs open and a surly warden-type hurls complimentary packages of stale bread and boiled water at us, exceeding all of my expectations for the simulated penal experience. You just don’t get this much for your money at Alcatraz.

The city of Hue is built along the Perfume River, which is pretty in an oily sort of way. The rest of the town is a dump, and its reputation as a “culinary capital” is fallacious -- the food is terrible. The touts are insufferable, pursuing us for blocks every time we leave the hotel, “Motorbike? Cyclo? Where you go?!” Craig tours the depressing Demilitarized Zone; I create a public disturbance with a dim-witted cyclo driver, and then it’s time to leave. After the Prison Train, I am ready to try the only alternative mode of land travel, so I buy Open Tour bus tickets all the way to Saigon. For $20, we can ride to any of the stops along the route and stay as long as we like at each one.

The air-conditioned tour bus that picks us up looks quite promising, definitely more comfortable than the Prison Train. Unfortunately, the roads are a horror and we are lurching straight into a typhoon. I spend most of the turbulent ride to Danang with my head on Craig’s lap, while he eyeballs me warily and waves plastic bags under my nose. The bus dumps us off at the edge of a flooded town in pounding rain. We drag our belongings through a knee-deep river that may have once been a road, and seek refuge in the nearest storefront cafe.

After procuring a taxi and hotel room, we litter our soaked possessions all over the room in a vain attempt to dry them out, and set off into the gale again in search of food. Craig is having a grand time running around in the deluge -- he loves a good natural disaster. Me, I’m still recovering from the nauseating bus ride, and tired of being cold and wet. I insist that we stop fording the typhoidal waters and find a place to eat; anywhere is fine with me. We duck into the nearest doorway/pho joint, order two big bowls of noodle soup and watch the water continue to rise in biblical proportions.

Heavy rain in this part of the world brings all of the drainage system’s creepy-crawlers above ground to avoid drowning. It is common knowledge that I’m not a fan of vermin, but I have to say I have really improved my tolerance since this adventure began. As long as they don’t touch me, I don’t freak out. Overall, I think I’ve done exceptionally well...but just now, I’m exhausted, sick, soaking wet, overwrought, and the literal hole-in-the-wall we have chosen to dine in is also sheltering a platoon of cockroaches.

If you have never been to the tropics, you may not realize that the cockroaches here are not the same harmless little critters that occasionally garnish your Chinese takeout from Clement Street. These are grotesque mutants of the species, 2 to 4 inches long and half as wide. They are so outsized you can actually distinguish them from one another by their facial features. A considerable number of them are scuttling around the...ummm, “restaurant” and I’m beginning to feel, well...crawly.

Inevitably, one of the scheming wretches senses my fear and comes for me, dropping kamikaze-like from the ceiling onto the back of my hand. With a blood-curdling shriek, I leap across the room, scattering plastic furniture and utensils. An old woman abandons her vegetable chopping and rushes over to me, eyes bulging; searching frantically for the artery I must have severed to justify such a commotion. Her shirtless husband doesn’t move from his meat chopping station; he just stares, toothless mouth ajar, cleaver frozen in mid-swing above his head. I am too hysterical to speak, so Craig patiently uprights the furniture and sends everyone back to their affairs, assured that I am unharmed and completely insane.

Needless to say, finishing our pho is out of the question. Back into the typhoon then, until we find a clean, friendly, tourist café where I am served hot tea with rum (a double, for my nerves,) and encouraged to compose myself. The storm has reached a howling pitch and we are the sole customers, so when the blood returns to my head we order more food and teach the young waitresses how to play Backgammon and Hearts. Quick studies they are, and over the next few days of constant rain, even Cardsharp Craig gets a run for his money.

Mellow Danang is not exactly a prime tourist destination -- especially during a monsoon -- but aside from the cockroach attack, I quite enjoyed it. Not too many tourists or touts, a worthwhile museum, a deserted beach, and of course our cafe Cards Club, altogether made it a worthwhile stop. Biche, the chemistry student/Backgammon shark from the cafe, recommends an interesting detour to Marble Mountain on the way out of town and assures me that the roads are in good condition, so I call the Open Tour company and schedule the short jaunt to Hoi An, our next stop.