Train to Hue

It’s 4:30am and we have about 3.5hrs left on the train I think. We all managed to get some sleep, or at least I think so. I’m not sure how much success Mercy has had in this department because she is sharing a berth with Emma May (who also happens to be wide awake now). Grady is still asleep. I woke up a while ago, the berths are hard which means that my back can only take 7hrs of lying down.

We’re sharing our cabin with a Vietnamese guy that can speak French and a bit of English. The poor bastard will be hating things soon once both kids get awake and start to get riled up.

There have been a couple of things that have surprised me about Vietnam. First, so far I have only seen one mosquito since we’ve arrived. I guess that could quickly change now that we are I’m the center of the country. Obviously I’m pretty happy about it though. We have anti-malarial pills, which are really only needed for the part of our trip where we visit an island in the south called Phu Qoc. That’s also a bit lucky because the pill that we take, Maladrone, costs $20 a pop. That’s $160 for 5 days for the 4 of us! My bigger concern has been the possibility of Dengue fever. It apparently is a nasty disease to catch. Where this really matters is that we think Grady’s rash was caused by the repellent/deet that we applied the first day here. So there will be no more deet for Grady.

The other thing that is a bit surprising is what appears to be a complete lack of police presence. We see the police around now and then but it doesn’t at all resemble a country that a few years ago would only allow tourists on approved packaged tours. I guess I’m dating myself a bit since free travel I’m Vietnam has been around for some time. However, capitalism is alive and well here. If this was a socialist state, you could have fooled me.

I’m wriing this on an iPod Touch which I borrowed from our friends Nicole and Paul. It’s been a cool device to have around for down times, like now. Emma May just told Mercy that the sun will be rising soon and Mercy asked her how she knew that. Emma said it’s because I’m on the computer…