Question for people who are quite familiar with the trains in Vietnam.
We will be traveling the following route:
Hanoi --> Ninh Binh --> Hue --> Hanoi
I just found out that it's not possible to board a sleeper car on the SE1 or SE3 in Ninh Binh. If we want to board a sleeper car in Ninh Binh we would have to take the SE19 instead, which departs Ninh Binh about an hour later.
I'm therefore considering traveling back up to Hanoi in order to board the SE1 overnight to Hue.
The reasons for backtracking are:
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the SE19 trains are older and more run down than the SE1 train. The SE1/2/3/4 have been recently refurbished. Don't know how much worse the SE19 train is, but if a newer nicer option is available we might as well take it.
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the departure time from Ninh Binh to Hue is awkward - around 10:30pm
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the train just makes a quick stop in Ninh Binh, so it would need to be a hasty boarding done in the dark. Boarding in the middle of a train journey can mean finding that your compartment is being used, or has been used and not cleaned.
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if we backtrack to Hanoi we will have a leisurely boarding at 7:30 pm, with no rush to find our compartment and get settled in. And because it's the start of the journey our compartment will be freshly cleaned.
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the train back to Hanoi departs Ninh Binh at around 1pm and takes a couple hours. This will be in July, so given the heat we probably would be hiding out at the hotel swimming pool during these hottest hours, so a comfortable ride in an airconditioned train car doesn't sound bad at all.
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that train would get us back to Hanoi around 3:30pm, giving us a few hours to do some shopping and stock up on food for the overnight trip that night.
So from what I can deduce, backtracking to Hanoi to board the overnight train to Hue isn't as dumb as it first sounds. And keep in mind that we are very much looking forward to the overnight journey - hence our desire to board the train at the beginning of the journey rather than joining in Ninh Binh. But perhaps I'm missing something?
Any feedback would be appreciated.
