Brian’s Travel Spot: Vietnam By Train, Ho Chi Minh City to Danang

My sleeper compartment on the TN2 train from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi.Welcome to the second instalment of the latest Brian’s Travel Spot, the occasional series in which I catalogue my travels by means other than the coffee shops I visit. This trip began just over a week ago, when I flew to Vietnam, a new destination for both me and the Coffee Spot. Since then I’ve been in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon as was), first exploring the city (through the lens of its speciality coffee shops), then attending a week-long meeting for my day job.

Ideally, I’d write things up as I go, letting you know what I made of the city, with regular updates documenting my various adventures/experiences. However, the last year has taught me that combining travel, work, keeping the Coffee Spot regularly updated and writing Travel Spots in real time just doesn’t work. Something had to give and, sadly, it’s the real-time Travel Spots.

Instead, I’ve put together a Travel Spot Page to deal with the whole trip, while the remaining posts in the series cover my epic 36-hour train journey from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi ending with my flight back to the UK.

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Brian’s Travel Spot: Vietnam

My Vietnamese Airlines Boeing 787-9 waiting at the gate at Heathrow's Terminal 4 to take me to Ho Chi Minh City.Welcome to another instalment of Brian’s Travel Spot, featuring Vietnam, a new destination for the Coffee Spot and for me personally. Having previously hardly set foot outside Western Europe and North America, the last 12 months have seen me visit China, Japan and now Vietnam for the first time. As it was with the two previous trips, this is for work, with time for some Coffee Spot duties tacked on at the start/end.

In another first for me, I flew out (and returned) on Vietnam Airlines. Having previously tried to travel only on British Airways or Virgin for long-haul flights, the last twelve months has seen me flying on a variety of airlines. Other than the annoyance at having my airmiles spread around all over the place, my (long haul) experience has been very positive, a trend that continued with Vietnam Airlines.

The trip itself took in a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, followed by a week there for business, and was rounded off by a week-long trip all the way up the coast by train to Hanoi, with stops at Hoi An and Hué along the way. I then flew back from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh and, from there, home.

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