Woke up with a shock in the morning. The uncle turned on the speaker in the room and shrill soprano singing was played! Urghh...
I opened my eyes and... green padi fields, blue sky, white clouds greeted me! Wow... I really marvelled at what I saw! It's so lovely!
Xiuyue woke up, so did Jasmine. Ha... but Jasmine said she didn't really sleep well in the night because it was noisy and the journey wasn't exactly smooth (rather bumpy at parts). Xiuyue said she was sleeping rather well when she was woken in the middle of the night by a tickling sensation near her neck. She brushed it away only to realise that it was a cockroach! It didn't occur to us that the cockroach is still alive and still in the room... until a little while later. The cockroach actually scurried from Xiuyue's bed and onto the uncle's bed. I screamed, jumped up while Xiuyue quickly took a plastic bag and came to the rescue. The cockroach was rather elusive... Xiuyue couldn't catch hold of it. Was going to give up hunting for it when it re-appeared! This time, uncle came to the rescue. Hee.. he was very swift and caught it! And then... he threw it into the little trash bin IN THE ROOM! With as best a sign language I could manage, I told him to throw the cockroach outside... And he did! Hee...
Breakfast's provided! Wow... It's instant noodles! Haha.. so exciting hor? It's pretty yummy... even though we knew we were literally eating Ajinomoto. Haha...
Using the map within the Lonely Planet guidebook, we asked uncle where we were and... we found that we were in Nha Trang! Wow.. no wonder the scenery's so pretty! But the train won't pass by the coast... so we won't get to see the famed beaches!
Just 2 hours after we've had our breakfast, they served lunch! Unbelieveable.. Anyway, we sat down with uncle and had lunch together. He actually let us sit nearer to the window. Gosh... So sweet and so nice of him. He even showed us how to open the lunch pack. Haha... So cute. But once I saw lunch, I lost my appetite. It doesn't look appetitising, doesn't smell appetitising, and definitely doesn't taste good. I managed whatever I could and gave thanks for whatever I had. I should be thankful that meals are provided on the train, even though it's not good food.
Shortly after lunch, while we were simply relaxing in the room, the door opened! And it was the little girl at the railway station! Her grandma was carrying her in her arms. Seems like they opened every single door in the other cars till they found Jasmine and Xiuyue! Wow...
The girl quickly made herself at home and we started playing with her! Hee... had a lot of fun playing with her... she's so cute! Oh... and we took a lot a lot of photos. Hee... She only stayed for about an hour and left for her nap.
Then, uncle opened the room door and our jaws dropped! It was awesome! We saw the sea! The train's travelling on the sides of mountains and hills and at times, we were on the edge of the cliff, at times, we were nestled in the valley between two mountains, and other times, we were in tunnels cut across the mountains! Wow... the 29-hours train journey is definitely worth it! Uncle took the map and pointed to our current location. We were travelling from DaNang to Hue and we're along the coastline... and the sea that we see is South China Sea! We can see the horizon of the sea from where we were and we were simply awed by the tranquil blue sea, the white waves breaking on the cliffs, the green mountains, the blue sky specked by white fluffy clouds... I was awed too by the works of His hand. That with one word, he created heaven and earth; land and sea. Wow...
So thankful for uncle. If he hadn't opened the door and showed us what lies out there, we would have missed it all! We simply stood out there along the doorway and admired the natural world. It's something that Singaporeans don't get to see in the city...
Hee... the little girl came back again! This time she only stayed for a short while before going off for her nap again. The train's reached Hue and we left the lovely seaview behind...
And guess what? They served dinner! At 4pm! Gosh... people here eat dinner really early. Thought dinner would be better than lunch but it's just as lousy. Sigh...
After dinner, Xiuyue whipped out her card game, Halli Galli, and we decided to pull uncle in to join us. Hee... We also got Minh (uncle's smoking buddy from the next door) to join us. Uncle enjoyed himself so much that he laughed out loud non-stop! Haha... Well, he's not the only one. All of us had so much fun! Hee... We played right through till night-time when we had to call it quits because... our neighbours were all turning in for the night and we were making too much noise laughing!
We decided to turn in early because we'll arrive in Hanoi at 4.30am. And this concludes one day. Everyone told us that we are making ourselves miserable by taking a 29-hour train journey instead of a 1-hour flight. But I think if given a second chance, I would still choose to take the train. I got to marvel at God's works of nature; got to know another friend (the Vietnamese uncle who took such good care of us); had lots of fun (playing games and taking photos!); and played with a cute little Vietnamese girl.
Xiuyue commented that this is a trip of 第一次 and indeed it is. These are our第一次：
第一次乘搭廉价航空
第一次到新加坡的Budget Terminal乘搭飞机
第一次背包旅行
第一次没预订酒店就出发
第一次到胡志明市
第一次在旅行中结交新朋友
第一次品尝朝鲜美食
第一次吃这么多免费晚餐（第一、二、三晚的晚餐都是新朋友请客的！）
第一次搭乘长途火车
No comments:
Post a Comment