Illustration by Trịnh Lập

by Nguyễn Mỹ Hà

If you're a tourist visiting the capital Hà Nội, you will probably have heard about it long before your trip: how you can get your hair raised on the back of your head by having a coffee, or jumping between the rails to get your pictures taken at 'Train Street' in downtown.

Marked in online maps of Hà Nội as 'Train Street', the 200m railroad tracks running through a crowded residential area some 500m north of Hà Nội Railway Station has been a must-see destination in the city for years.

You will find people from all over trying to get a photo taken as the train comes in and out of this area, sipping drinks as the train comes by. Tourists even put beer bottle caps on the rail to crush them under the train and pick them up as souvenirs for later.

Advice found online to guide tourists, says the trains come in and out at a scheduled time and that their speed is only about 30kmph, so not very fast.

This is total nonsense as fast or slow, trains are dangerous, and you won't want to risk your life or personal safety confronting a moving steel structure.

Let me ask a question to every single tourist trying to get passed the police line to grasp a piece of the train and keep it as a souvenir. Would you do the same in your home country? Why would you want to break the law here?

It is simply wrong and dangerous, and even if the chance of a train derailing due to bottle caps on the train is 1 in 1,000, it's still dangerous and illegal.

This is a call to tourists to be respectful and act accordingly to make your time here worthwhile, worth the money you spent on plane tickets, and worth your time to come all the way from another part of the world.

The train in Việt Nam could be better at serving the local passengers and tourists. Nearly 40 years have passed since the đổi mới reforms, but the progress and improvements in railway infrastructure have not kept up with that in other fields, like air routes or land roads.

Tourists travel in Laos say that even the trains there are better than those in Việt Nam.

Built by the French in the early 20th century, the trains used to carry goods and people from the north to the south and back. During the war, they carried soldiers to the battlefront, and today, they still work, but investment has not been poured in to improve the service.

A foreign editor working for Việt Nam News once took the world's longest train from his home in Glasgow, UK, down to cross the English Channel, then over to Paris, on to Moscow, then on the cross-Siberia train to Beijing, then down to Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City. It took him a month.

On the same trans-Siberia trains, Vietnamese students studying in the former Soviet bloc countries used to travel to go home each summer. They would spend a full 11-days on the train, waiting from meal to meal and contemplating the landscape passing by their window. My sister spent the whole time knitting winter wool jackets for everyone in the family.

Today that route cannot be taken, but when conditions permit, and when I retire with much time to pass, I'd love to do the same route but on the other way around from Hồ Chí Minh City up and beyond.

Last summer, we took a train from Hà Nội to Vinh with a four-sleeper coach. It was a brief and fun ride, compared to the fully-packed cars in the years before the đổi mới period.

Travelling by train takes longer, but it's safe for those scared of flying. Việt Nam has a long north-south ride and the good news is, this March 26, Việt Nam Rails shall open a tourist carriage from Huế to Đà Nẵng, where the train runs along the graceful coastal bench, dubbed the most beautiful ride in the country.

The 100km ride from Huế to Đà Nẵng, running underneath Hải Vân Pass, will be a beautiful and fun ride not only for regular tourists but also for families travelling in large groups.

Take the train to contemplate this beautiful journey. It is a route passed many times pre-1986 as we went to Đà Nẵng every summer. The scenery was spectacular, but we didn't have a camera to capture it. Today, your phone can take photos or video clips of the ride.

Both Huế and Đà Nẵng have plenty of beaches for you to relax, as well as historic museums and ancient villages, and youths trying to live as farmers in villages near Hội An. Such activities will definitely be worth your while, far better than sitting on a plastic stool waiting for a train to pass by at turtle's pace. — VNS