Leaving Vietnam was…. As all country leavings seem to be for us…. Somewhat eventful. Our Train was leaving Hanoi at around 10pm and on our way to the Train Station we realized that we had run out of Vietnamese Dong. Though we’d thought US dollars would be fine as that has been the case in many parts of Vietnam our Cab driver was not happy to accept them. But accept them he did after 10 minutes of arguing over what they were worth, and when he realized we had nothing else.

Then.. the “International train station” we went to, turned out to be a bit of a back street dump. We needed to get some more supplies for the train but there was no café, no shop, nothing but a couple of overpriced street stalls. The stalls wanted 30 dong for water (about 3 1/2 times the going rate). We managed to bargain them down to ten and get some meager food and away we went.
Of course, the waiting room toilet had neither toilet paper or a squirter….. I deeply regretted the extra hot chilli I had added to my dinner earlier several times in the next 24 hours. IN fact… it turned out to be a day when the toilets got progressively worse.

a. Street side dinner and beers before we left I used a squat toilet that was filthy but at least had a squirter.(That I did not need to use thank god as it was filthy).

b. On the train, squat toilet, no paper, no squirter… everything just drops down onto the tracks.Hhhmmmm!!!

c. Toilets at the Border crossing to China, squat, no toilet paper, no squirter, doors did not shut properly, poo everywhere.

d. Toilets in two restaurants in Nanning(China), pretty dirty, no toilet paper…. But a dirty squirter in one of them.

e. Children weeing or pooing anywhere-into bags – onto footpath and so on

f. The coup de gras – just before we got on the sleeper bus in Nanning(China), toilets were a 20 cm trench that ran the length of a bank of toilets, no paper, no squirter, no doors. So you squat there, shitting, watching other peoples poo float down the trench, arse to the wind as people walk up and down the toilet building past your cubicle. (vomit!!)

Oh and remember… I’d had an overdose of chili right? Nicis experience was even worse apparently as there was this lady and …. Oh never mind.

The trip itself was pretty tiring, as we never like to have to get our kids up in the middle of the night. We stop at the border at around 11pm, get out and hand over passports and get our departure stamp for Vietnam. Than we get back on go another 10 km,and the train stops again. This time we get out, take all our bags and tired children and hand over passports, eventually after being checked carefully we are allowed back on, by now it’s 12.30am and our kids can go to sleep finally… we wait for 90 minutes for train to be…. I don’t know why we had to wait we just did….. we arrive in Nanning at 9am.