The Good Land

I spent four days in the beach town of Nha Trang, Vietnam. Nha Trang looks and feels a lot like Hawaii, with beautiful sunrises and coconut trees. It was a great place to recover from the previous few weeks of touring war zones in 100-degree heat, going to the hospital, and playing Motorbike Frogger.

I woke up yesterday feeling quite happy. I had spent the prior night dancing the night away at a beach party with other tourists. My $10/night "mid range" hotel room had a private rooftop balcony overlooking the ocean, and I was headed out to my fourth day at the beach - another day consisting of lounging under a cabana, reading pirated books purchased for $1 each, and drinking fruit cocktails.

After enjoying a final day in tropical paradise before getting back to real travel, I headed to the train station to catch my "Sleeper Train" to Saigon. Well, at least I had thought it was a sleeper train when I purchased my ticket.

Sleeper Trains are popular with backpackers - they are cheap and more comfy than a bus, and usually a great way to meet other travelers to hang out with in the next city. They have tickets divided into two categories: "Soft Beds" and "Hard Beds." Soft Beds usually feature four beds on two bunks, and a door that locks. Hard Beds aren't actually hard (they have a mattress), but they cram about 60 beds into a single train-car, stacked three on top of each other - obviously less comfortable/private than Soft Beds, but manageable with ear plugs (so I learned in China).

I learned upon arriving at the station that my train was 5 hours delayed. The train station in Nha Trang was hot and crowded and it was already shaping up to be a long night, so I approached the counter seeking to change my ticket. I tried communicate with the attendant while various fellow passengers were gently-but-persistently trying to oust me from the window while shoving their money in the attendant's face.

She swapped my delayed Soft Bed ticket with a "Hard - Air Conditioned" ticket on the earlier train, which was fine. But when I finally boarded the train, I learned that my new ticket was not a "Hard Bed," but a Hard Bench. Other passengers - babies to elderly - traveling south from northern cities were already sprawled out across the entire car - laying across benches, across the floor, across bags of fruit and grain piled up throughout the car, and across each other. My seat was next to the bathroom.

Fortunately my Bench Mates welcomed the lone foreigner and we managed to arrange ourselves so everyone could lie down without touching each other. I threw my sarong across the bench, strategically configured my camera bag so it was wound around the bench, my body and my arm, and then popped an Ambien.

Hardcore Traveler, at last! In honor of my new self-proclaimed status I had a beer tonight at a burger joint just down the street from my Saigon hotel: The Milwaukee Grill and Cafe. Owned by a Malaysian and staffed by several Vietnamese who all agree "Milwaukee is very beautiful!", the place just warmed my heart. No Miller Beer was available, but I felt a definite surge of Sconnie pride looking at the walls with enormous posters of the Vietnamese infatuation: The Motorbike that Rules All Motorbikes - Harley Davidson.

Holla!