I am always the first to say that traveling is awesome!
You get to visit amazing new places and meet fellow travelers worldwide. I love it 90% of the time but, you need to take the bad with the good.
It still beats going to work, I think!
Well, in the last few days, I experienced the good and the bad! The good always outweighs the bad long term but, this was some short-term suck for sure. It started with a self-inflicted 17-hour train ride up the coast from HCMC to Da Nang, Vietnam. I planned to go all the way North in one day and work my way back South slowly.
Great plan in theory!
I made it through the hellish train ride and had a great first day in beautiful Da Nang as I blogged here. The dragon bridge was neat to see too but it was just a bridge as blogged about here.
On day two, I woke up with a train hangover and sore throat and my body just hurt. The good news is that a massage can be had for about $12, I was able to fix my body with a couple of massages. The bad, my sore throat turned into a full-on chest cold, and I was coughing up nasties. This chest cold was different as I was coughing up the air pollution as well. Awesome!!
I was able to fight my way through it and made my way to Hoi, An as I blogged here.
It was a beautiful place to visit but, I was just not feeling well enough to enjoy it. After a couple of days, I planned my get-a-way to my next destination, Nah Trang. It would be another nasty 12-hour train ride South which was more than halfway home to HCMC.
Well, that turned to dog shit in a hurry!!
I took a 45-minute shuttle from Hoi An to the Da Nang train station to find out that the tickets were sold out. I begged the agent to help me as I was sickly, and she did her best. She put me on two different trains to get me to Da Nang and the train was scheduled to leave in an hour but delayed 45 minutes. Math tells me that is 1:45 minutes, right? RIGHT!!
The train pulls into the station and the waiting room heads to the platform; I hand my ticket to the train operator and settle in for the long ride. I ordered a few beers and a sandwich and enjoyed the ocean view on the EAST side of the train.
Most people would realize that they are headed north, nope, not this guy but look at that view!!
After a few hours of relaxing, we arrived at our first stop, and someone woke me up by asking if I was getting off in Hue. I was half asleep and three beers deep and, told him I was going to Nah Trang.
Well, suddenly the whole train knew English!
This train is going NORTH several people yelled while I frantically looked for my ticket. These trains only stop for five minutes so since I knew I fucked up: I got off the train without my phone charger and favorite hat.
FUCK!!
It took me a good 30 minutes to calm down and put a recovery plan in place.
First, I had to find a charger so I could use my phone which was easy, I bought one for five bucks. OK, so I had internet and started realizing my messy situation.
Second, I sheepishly went to the ticket counter to tell them what had happened which didn’t matter as they could not speak a lick of English. I google translated my story to blame the Railways for taking my ticket and allowing my dumbass to get on the wrong train. They were not buying my sad story, and they wanted the full $70 train fare again.
They ended up allowing me to use my original ticket, which was a small win, but I needed to be on a train for a total of 21 hours. I was fucking delusional most of the ride as I had zero sleep.
I like to think that I always win in the end when traveling, and this was no different and just another crazy story.
I am currently writing this blog drinking a $2 lemongrass peach bubble tea with an ocean view listing to the Oilers pregame show.
I am also staying in an amazing Airbnb for $15 a night to rest my old bones and feel better.
There are also many good-looking Russians and Ukrainians here fleeing the war. They walk on the beach, and you can tell by their language and good looks.
I also found a $75 flight to get back to HCMC to avoid another 10-hour train ride:
NAD for the bounce-back win in extra time!! 🤓
