The Overnight Train From Lao Cai to Hanoi, Vietnam
There are approximately five trains every night from Lao Cai to Hanoi leaving at different times for the nine hour train ride. Hard class with wooden seats, Soft seats, trains with 6-berth compartments, trains with 4-berth compartments and the deluxe Victoria Sapa Express with 2-berths per compartment that runs three times a week and is only bookable if you stay at the Victoria Sapa Hotel. We were scheduled on the 8:15 pm with "soft sleeper" compartments available. The toilets (one western and one squat) are located at either end of each car.
Soft sleeper compartments hold four people in upper and lower berths with blankets and pillows provided. The train food is not very good so most tourists eat before boarding in Lao Cai and bring munchies to eat along the way. There are carts that sell beer, water and other items on the train...View image. TIP: It is possible to buy (in advance) all four berths in your compartment for whatever the cost is of those berths. The two of us have shared compartments with strangers and tour participants in the past. It is definitely bearable but the 2008 Central China experience with a "World Champion mega-decibel snorer" was not pleasant and we purchased the extra two compartments for $60 U.S. If not that, consider bringing ear plugs!
Tourists sit around the train square for hours at one of the two better restaurants. Eating, drinking beer, playing cards, buying train tickets from the restaurant we ate at, Nhat Linh Restaurant, watching the vendors until time to leave. Nhat Linh Restaurant also stored our bags until time to leave. Night started to fall and the square lit up with small one-table restaurants, people selling fruit and water for the train trip. A favorite was also the Ho Chi Minh clock proudly displayed inside Nhat Linh.
The long wait over at 7:45 p.m., a mad dash into the Lao Cai Train Station...View image... with one and all showing tickets, looking for their numbered car and then compartment. Settled in to our, thankfully, private compartment with motion-sickness pills, (this stretch of train travel is not known for its smooth tracks) and went to sleep. Train personnel bang on the compartment doors at 4:45 a.m. and it was off the train in Hanoi at the ungodly hour of 5:00 a.m. A sea of traffic outside the Hanoi Train Station. Tour buses, public buses, taxis, and private cars, all waiting to pick up the early morning arrivals. Hotels, including ours, won't check you in at that hour. What to do...
