24 Hours to Hue by night train and coach

Vinh Moc Tunnels

FRIDAY 22 JULY 2011

The train journey from to Hanoi to Hue was the worst I have experienced. I had booked a 4 berth soft bed with air conditioning. It was a 4 berth with air conditioning, but the beds were solid and the pillow extremely thin. On the train to Sa Pa we were given water and a wet towel, but nothing on this train. The train rocked so violently I kept hitting my head on the wall. Every now and again there would be a terrific bang which presumably was one carriage hitting the other when the train slowed down. This was definitely an old stock train! The one good thing was that I shared it with three girls this time who were very quiet – unlike the passengers outside our cabin!

The train stopped about 6.30 a.m. and over an hour later there was an announcement in Vietnamese. I found out from a fellow passenger that there had been an accident further down the line and it would be about 3 hours before the train would leave, and we were still about 200 kilometers from Hue! There was no food or water provided, but I had some snacks with me. 

I noticed a man getting off the train with luggage and asked if he had managed to arrange a lift. He said they were teachers with a Catholic boys’ school trip from Auckland, New Zealand, and their bus was supposed to meet them an hour further down the line. They had rang for the bus to pick them up, and he offered a lift to me and the three girls in my cabin! How could we refuse? The best thing was they were on a history trip and were spending the day visiting the DMZ (De-Militarised Zone) north of the 17th parallel, and the Vinh Moc tunnels.

 
We stopped at Dong Hoi where rooms had been arranged for a quick shower before having lunch. Dong Hoi had been completely flattened by the American bombing who had dropped 330,000 tonnes of bombs on the area. 

We visited the museum and tunnels at Vinh Moc, where 600 villagers lived underground for six years until 1972 after their village was destroyed. The tunnels were about 1.7- 2 meters high, and people lived in tiny squares cut into the tunnels. There was also a school, clinics and a maternity room - 17 babies were actually born in the tunnels. The tunnels had several entrances, one by a beautiful beach. This area saw some of the fiercest fighting between the Americans and North Vietnamese, as it was the border between the North and South. We then drove on to Quang Tri, a town which had been completely obliterated during 81 days of some of the fiercest fighting of the war – about 380,000 tonnes of bombs had been dropped on it!

New Zealand Catholic Boys' School

We finally arrived in Hue about 6.30 p.m. and when I got to my hotel I was told that the train would not be arriving until about 8 p.m. that night – over 12 hours late!  I had had a far more enjoyable day than waiting on the platform for 12 hours.

Maternity ward in Vinh Moc Tunnels

Beach near Vinh Moc