Hue to Hanoi - thirteen hours - soft seat air-con...

What's thirteen hours of sitting in a soft seat, in an air-con carriage?
It sounds alright, time for gazing, napping, daydreaming, reading and the like, with a bag of snacks handy. Thirteen hours is only like eight double lessons, or three days worth of teaching class....

And then someone brings the fish! If I was ever in the position Julia Gillard got into recently and became leader of a country with the opportunity to make some rules it wouldn't be the miners I talked to first it would be "The People".

Dear People,

This is our country, in our minds it is a great country, and to keep up our reputation it has fallen to me to make two changes to the constitution:
No fish to be brought on to trains at any time is my first decree, and secondly, I will provide funding so that all airport staff and taxi drivers who meet visitors to our country are given expert training. Remember a visitor's impressions start from the first voice they hear when they arrive. These impressions are important to our country; people should not arrive and then feel left out, ignored and unimportant only to be subjected to a barrage of too much inclusion and importance. This combined with an intense negotiation of fees and fares in which the unsuspecting visitors is argued with or haggled over creates the wrong impression.....

Maybe the thought was inspired by the rousing speech that greeted us on arrival at Hanoi. "Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and everything important happens here. The Foreign Affairs Office is here and Hanoi is the home of much history, walking through Hanoi we can be reminded of the hard work of the farmers, the steelworkers, the teachers who have made Vietnam great. With every step on Hanoi streets we can be reminded of the history and industry. Hanoi has beautiful weather" And so it went on until finally the voice, a modulated somewhat Canadian sounding voice said " We wish you prosperity and happiness and thank you for traveling with us to our city, the final destination of this train, Hanoi and you are really not to get out of the train before it stops at the station...."

So welcoming...and that was the end of a thirteen hour train journey that was fine apart from the fish....Tomorrow I only have ten hours to Sapa.


OK Who brought the fish?