The train ride from Saigon to Hanoi

For those of you wishing to view a gallery of the photos, it is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngiapheng/sets/72157623832487401/

It felt good getting onto a train again. The Vietnamese train is not the most well-maintained, but it was so far the most comfortable train ride that I have had. I was in a compartment with four beds and all the people that I rode with were Vietnamese. I was very fortunate, for most of the way, I had the company of a magazine editor, Khai. During the war, he worked for Radio Vietnam. And he has also worked for Vietnam tourism and has traveled around much of Asia. It was a valuable insight into the Vietnamese view of history.

Some of the things that I learned from Khai is that the Vietnamese people had be colonised and traumatised first by the French and the Americans. Da Nang was the port of entry for both the French and Americans. From the point of view of the communist, they were not fighting an ideological war with western powers, they were fighting for their country. This was a viewpoint that I have not come across before. And there were problems after the liberation of Saigon, but the future of the country was in the hands of its own people as it should be. And Khai himself admitted that in Vietnam today, there is a problem with infrastructure, education and corruption, but still, seeing what I have seen in Saigon and Hanoi, the people are thriving and there is an energy of hope here. The Vietnamese have learned more from the Chinese than the Russians, and this form of economic free market with communist government, does not seem to be all that bad.

The train ride once again showed me vast lands, sometimes of woods and sometimes of rice fields and sometimes of dragon fruit farms. And scattered amongst the landscape were ornate graves, sometimes the just the grave of a single person, sometimes a sizable cemetery. And the french legacy was visible too, churches at the foot of hills, reminiscent of country side scenes in Europe. And I wonder about our lives in Singapore, as rich as and privileged as it is, there is a much bigger world out there. I am not saying that I would want to live in a farm in the middle of Vietnam, but I do wonder what the life of those toiling figures that I see in the train's window is like. What are their fears, what are their hopes.

On this journey, I am alone and do feel lonely at times. But I am also comforted by the fact that the world is so big, and I am reminded all those huge problems that I faced in Singapore working and living, is not such a big deal after all. If the people in Vietnam can find hope after hundreds of years of strife, why should I be negative. Khai told me that he does not feel hatred towards the Americans, in fact he sympathizes with the families of Americans who lost their lives in what he considers a futile war.