Day 8 Grim Vinh

12/03/13

This morning, before breakfast, Rob rode to the train station, with me ridding pillion. We failed to find the station on our first outing from the hotel but our second attempt was more successful, we were able to purchase our tickets to Vinh (nicknamed Grim Vinh because the architecture is horrible concrete). We had a slow breakfast, packed then left to wait for our train, which left at 12.30. There are 2 types of seat available on Vietnamese trains, similar to 1st and 2nd class, hard or soft seat, when we bought the tickets there was only hard ones left. They weren't joking when they said hard, the seats were basically high-backed wooden benches, it was made worse by the bloke opposite, he kept putting his foot on the bench in between George and I in a non-existent gap, when it wasn't there it was in between my legs, literally no concept of personal space, he did however tell us when Vinh station was coming, almost 5 hours after setting off. We got a taxi to a hotel we picked from the guidebook, it was cheaper than expected, a very fancy triple room for just £3 each, not too shabby really. Our linner (lunch-dinner) we all ordered different meals, George loved his beef dish, Rob didn't really appreciate his chicken and my fish was just a pain, 20 small fish, all too big to eat whole but too small to de-bone easily! (photos of the last couple of days also up)

It was a long journey!