The good, the bad...

and if my brother was reading, he would say that I'm "the ugly." But last night was split into a good part and a bad part. First, the good:

I made it to the restaurant I had chosen to eat at for dinner just before it started pouring buckets again. Also, I managed to stop into a used bookstore that had a large selection of English new and used books, and I was able to trade out the Quiet American for The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. The French-Vietnamese restaurant where I had dinner was a training school for disadvantaged children to turn them into restaurant kitchen staff. Both the food and the service were excellent; I had pork chops with au gratin potatoes and cinammon and apple crumble with vanilla ice cream for dessert. They sat me down at a cozy balcony where the tables were ringed by bamboo stalks, and I could watch the rain pour down as I ate.

Now, to the bad....As for the train ride from Hanoi to Hue, it was rough. There were a lot of people heading down from Hanoi to Vinh (on the way to Hue) and the beach for the weekend, and pretty much all of the trains go south along the same tracks to Ho Chi Minh City. So, because the train was nearly booked up for seats when I went to the train station on Monday, I had to sit in one of the hard seats for this 17-hour trip, which are as bad as they sound. Mass was already aching thirty minutes into the trip, and it was almost impossible to get into a position where I could sleep comfortable because of the vertical alignment and a curve back even further near the top of the seat. Even worse, the coaches weren't air-conditioned, which meant that one had to keep the windows open, which made the temperature almost bearable when the train was moving, but meant that I had to remain vigilant against mosquitoes and biting flies, kind of contrary to the relaxation necessary to fall asleep.

The train was much more comfortable after 90% of the people in our coach cleared out at Vinh. I was able to stretch out over the three seats and fall asleep for a few hours. And the morning was nice until the train heated up again, being able to see lots of rice paddies, the tails of buffalo swishing, and the strut of a rooster. Also, the people that talked to me on the train were really friendly, sharing their snacks and drinks with me and teaching me some Vietnamese words. In the end, I made it to Hue in one piece, and my budget room is really comfortable. Sometimes, it might as well be the flip of a coin.