That Time at The Saigon Train Station

That was an interesting choice for a tile, wasn't it? Well a more accurate title for this post would be 'That LONG Time at the Saigon Train Station'. It started when Kelsey and I came back from the Cu Chi Tunnels and needed to catch a train. We didn't have any experience with trains in Vietnam, so our concierge tried to call for us. She probably tried to call three times and always got a busy signal.

With no other options, we headed to the station to pick up some tickets for that night. As I remember, we got to the station at about 5:30. There was no line at the ticket counter, so we walked up there and finally figured out that we needed to get a numbered ticket. The current call up was at number 630. We pressed the button and received ticket number 801. Duh Duh Duh.

What followed was an absolutely agonizing wait for tickets that took over two hours. There were only two clerks working and sometimes a group of people would spend over 10 minutes with a clerk. I cannot imagine what they could have possibly been doing for THAT long.

We did finally get our tickets, though, for the 11:00 sleeper train. That left us with another three or four hours to kill before the train. Our obvious first choice was to get some sandwiches and some beer. See Vietnam has these little French bread sandwiches called Bahn My, or something really close to that, and they are extremely delicious. They are one of my favorite parts, these sandwiches, because they are awesome and cost about 50 cents American. They look like this, by the way:

The sandwiches are loaded with vegetables, meat, and sauce. Although the meat sometimes looks like dog food, they are always delicious. Here's a closer look at the inside:

I also got a coconut milk that a small waitress hacked open with a butcher knife:

So we managed to kill another hour or so drinking and eating, and I caught this nice photo opportunity:

With a few hours left to kill, we decided to go inside the station again and use the free internet for a while. Unfortunately, two kids were using the two computers to play games on one, and use Microsoft Paint on the other. Kelsey and I then went and got some snacks. When Kelsey offered the boys these small bear shaped chocolate filled cookies, they surrendered one of the computers.

Another effect of giving up the cookie was that we made instant friends with one of the kids. We tested whether this kid knew rock-scissors-paper, and he did. The boys father, knowing that he had some free babysitters now, left for the canteen never to be seen by us again. We came up with new ways to play rock-scissors-paper, here he is up on a ledge playing against Kelsey:

I learned this kids name at one point, but I couldn't pronounce it and I quickly forgot it anyway. we tried to teach him a little English, but he refused to and just made some noises while we played games with him. We also played high five where he had to jump as high as he could, and then I tried to teach him the game Tetris on a cheap flash version of the game on the computer. We ended up spending over an hour with the kid, and he was pretty awesome:

So now it was almost time to board the train. We got the soft-sleeper class, which was really nice. There were four bunks in each room, so Kelsey and I shared with a Vietnamese couple who slept the whole time. The train ride was a great time because we played cards for a while, and then got to hang out with two Russian couples and two sons from a family of diplomats. So, you know, your average train ride.