Welcome to my fifth Vietnam Travel Diary! This is all about the sleeper from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang. In this post I’ll share the logistics of the journey, along with a few of my tips that I used to make it as smooth as possible!
My partner and I booked the SNT2 from Saigon Railway Station to Nha Trang. This actually has the longest duration at around 9 hours in total and it got us into Nha Trang at about 6am. There are other trains with shorter estimate times e.g. the SE2 which has a duration of around 8 hours. However trains in Vietnam don’t always run exactly to time and there can be delays, so we didn’t particularly mind about the differences in duration. We chose the SNT2 train because we didn’t want to be waiting around in HCMC too late, and luckily our amazing Air BnB host let us into our accommodation super early! (More on that in the next post!)
How to book
We booked in advance online using baolau.com, so that we could easily plan an itinerary around the train times. This also meant we were able to know exactly when to travel to Saigon Railway station, and we didn’t have to go there earlier in the week to collect or buy tickets. It’s about a 30 minute walk or a 10 minute taxi ride from District 1 to the station so we decided it would be ideal to only go there once and be able to take a taxi and not carry our full luggage around late at night.
Cost
When researching the cost of travel, the general consensus was that buying tickets in person is generally cheaper. However, due to my tendency to worry and my keenness to plan well, we decided to pay the extra and book them online as E-tickets. It meant that we knew roughly when we would be leaving HCMC and when we would get to Nha Trang. It cost us 557,000vnd each for a bed in a soft berth cabin. That’s around £18.50 or $24.00. Considering the price of a sleeper train journey in the UK, that’s an absolute bargain! We decided to go with the soft berth because the prices for the hard berth weren’t much cheaper, and having 4 beds instead of 6 makes all the difference.
The Station
We arrived at Saigon Railway Station in the evening, ready to get the overnight train. Getting the tickets was fairly easy. After not being able to work the E-ticket machines we asked the lady at the kiosk and she told us that our printed tickets would work as they were.
Food, Drink & Toiletries
In the station there were several convenience stores selling food, toiletries and souvenirs. There was also a fast food type restaurant called Lotteria which is where we had dinner. I would recommend that you eat something before setting off. I know that some of the long haul trains provide food, but I have no idea if the sleeper does and the concierge at our hotel was adamant that we should eat before getting on the train. We also bought one of the large free bottles of water from our hotel with us, but the train actually supplied their own little bottles of water in each cabin.
We also bought toilet paper, which turned out to be absolutely essential! I would suggest definitely bringing some along, because the toilet paper in the train toilets runs out very quickly. Also, because the train is very jerky, sometimes the toilet lid isn’t shut and water gets EVERYWHERE. I would advise that you bring:
- Toilet paper
- Hand sanitiser
- A pair of slip on shoes (for walking to and from the loo)
The Cabin
Each bed is numbered, so you know whether you’re on the top or the bottom bunk. We booked bottom bunks and there was plenty of space under there to store our bags, shoes and water. On the top bunks there were also little shelves to store these things.
Though it is rare and may be more common in the soft and hard seat areas, theft does occur on these trains occasionally. Due to this I bought a very cheap steel looped cable ( you can find it here) and used a padlock to secure it under the bed for added security. It just gives a little extra peace of mind. Of course it’s very unlikely that anyone would come into a cabin and look through your bags, but there’s no harm in staying vigilant.
The beds were surprisingly comfy and cosy. You are provided a sheet, a pillow with a case on it, and a blanket. We brought pillow cases with us from home as this was a tip that we saw several times on a few blogs. I’m glad we did because they added an extra aspect of homeliness and made it easier to settle down when it was time to sleep. I personally find it very hard to sleep away from home, so I also brought some sleepy cream from LUSH with me, which you can find here. It is an incredible product and really helps when you find yourself tossing and turning at night.
The cabin doors close easily and allow privacy. We shared our cabin with a Vietnamese couple who were very friendly. When the train sets off the lights in the cabin turn off, which happened whilst I was writing in my travel diary (the Vietnamese man in our cabin found this very funny!). However there are little individual reading lights for each bunk so that when the lights are turned off you can still read/write. The air con was good and I didn’t feel too hot or cold. It was really cosy!
The items that were essential for me:
- Steel looped Cable
- Padlocks
- A pillow case from home
- Sleepy cream (LUSH)
The Journey
I won’t lie to you… it was rocky! My boyfriend described it as “like being rocked to sleep with the subtlety of a jack-hammer”. Despite this, we got some sleep. I never thought I’d be able to drift off but I did, even if it was only for an hour or so. In the morning the train gives a ‘wake up call’ which is some calming music.
We woke up with about an hour left of the journey, and we just watched the sun rising over the fields. It was such a wonderful experience to watch the landscape passing by. We saw farmers working in the fields, cattle grazing, rolling hills and tall mountains. It was so different to the urban bustle of Ho Chi Minh City.
The corridors of the train are pretty narrow so we were very glad that we only had rucksacks to carry through. To get to the station we walked over the tracks.
We then headed towards the front entrance to get a taxi to take us towards our Air BnB. By this time is was around 6:30am so we were in good time for our 7am check in. The journey was an awesome experience. It was comfortable, fun, and it got us to Nha Trang for a relatively cheap price. Flying is often quicker, but as someone who hates flying this was an interesting and convenient alternative! I would definitely recommend the soft berth on the sleeper train from HCMC. It’s not luxury travel, but it’s an experience in itself, and I’m so glad we did it!
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