Where do you start?
Well virtually anywhere on the network – Da Nang? Hanoi? – the trains are the same, long lines of carriages pulled slowly along by huge work-a-day diesel units, no streamlined euro trains these! Passengers gradually assemble in large echoey station waiting rooms and are entertained by Vietnamese soaps at high volume until the gates are opened and everyone streams out across the tracks to hunt down their carriage, conscious of large machines moving in the dark as engines are changed with much clanging and not a little shouting.
