Erland’s Ranting

So far: 87 hrs on trains… and so many, many more to go.

I want to take you back through a few of the places I’ve already been in photos. Come, friends, travel with me…

There was the buses from Sydney to Adelaide, but that was awful, so let’s move right along to watching the sunset over the sea at Glenelg Beach. Actually, I didn’t enjoy Glenelg much – so many tourists and general foulness, but I did find an absolutely superb organic pizzeria.

Sunset (this is going to keep coming back, as you can see) over the desert in South Australia the next day from the window of the Ghan.

The next morning, still on the Ghan railway but now in the Northern Territory approaching Alice, we crossed the Fink River, which unusually had some water in it. Apparently, there had been a fair bit of rain two weeks before in the Centre which made for an amazing contrast to when I travelled the same line in mid-2007 (bone dry).

Finally, the first train trip of many came to an end in Darwin after 53 hours and I took one, very brief, parting look at the train, without much nostalgia to speak of.

A couple of nights in Darwin, then my one flight of the whole trip, about four hours to Ho Chi Minh. I can thoroughly recommend the Banyan View Lodge, run by the YWCA, but avoid “The Cavenaugh” backpackers. Once in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I particularly loved the road transport, common to most South-East Asian cities…

…and really loved strolling through Tao Dan park in the centre of the city, a welcome escape from the fumes and horns of the busy streets.

Then, on through the streets once more…

…to the Reunification Palace, the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, the Post Office and back past some boys copying famous paintings.

Finally, I was on the train to Hanoi at 7pm and though I didn’t see anything much out the window that night, in the morning there were rice paddies and misty forested hills aplenty. Now, I don’t want to discourage people from travelling on sustainable transport, but truth be told, there were mice on the train as companions (even in the “soft sleeper” class) and though I shared my four-bunk room with only one other guy, he was particularly obnoxious – talking very loudly on the phone at about 6am in the morning when any sensible bugger would be sleeping. He also chose to play awful music very loudly from a tinny portable radio. Other than that, he kept to himself and I read and watched the scenery most of the time undisturbed. Unfortunately, the window wasn’t very clean either and it was raining most of the time, so the photos here aren’t great.

Now I’m in Hanoi and tomorrow I think I’ll head out to Ha Long Bay and perhaps spend New Year’s there.