Posts Tagged ‘planes’

Leaving Cambodia

So after we finished seeing temples in Cambodia, we didn’t want to deal with another border like the last one we dealt with.  So we flew to Vietnam, the land of delicious food and a really long coastline!  In fact, it was so long that we spent about half our time travelling!

We ended up not being so happy about this, but c’est la vie.  We used a number of different modes of transportation – trains, planes AND automobiles!  Our favorite was the train, where we took a first class sleeper car from Da Nang to Hanoi.  There were four people in the cabin and nice comfy beds to sleep in, along with air conditioning (though the weather was pretty mild anyway).  We’ve found that trains gently rock you to sleep whereas planes and cars don’t have nearly the same relaxing feel to them.

Our least favorite mode of transportation was the bus.  We took two overnight buses in Vietnam, and one was definitely better than the other but they are both suboptimal when it comes to rest quality.

Sleeper Bus Vietnam Style

At first it seems really cool!  Everyone (almost) gets their own bed, separated from the others, and there’s a bathroom on board.  But the truth comes a little later when the reality of Vietnamese roads sets in – the driver is going crazily fast, causing you to float out of your bed on occasion, and he doesn’t hesitate to use his really loud horn (at all hours of the night) to warn other drivers of the speeding bullet hurtling down the road at completely unsafe speeds.

Then you find that your second overnight bus has no bathroom and that you are shoved into a communal platform-bed with 4 other travellers in the back of the bus where it’s even more bumpy.  At that point you become convinced that the train is worth the extra cost!

The plane was pretty much as expected.  It was convenient, reasonably comfortable, and most importantly it was fast!  The only downside is that airports tend to be really far from the downtown areas of town.  But if you have the cash, this is the way to go!