A journey through history on board Vietnam’s Reunification Express train
We’re no longer a country of war — we’ve moved on,” says my guide, Mr Tien, and I believe him. Hanoi is a city on the move; all around us, hundreds of commuters are hunched over their scooter handlebars, raring to go. Following the throng into the heart of the capital, we pass elderly couples waltzing in the park, a lady and her poodle with matching multicoloured hairdos, and high-school girls sporting slogan T-shirts and flashes of red lipstick.
The bus halts and I step into a fog of frying chillies and fuel. Passengers tug suitcases behind them like unruly dogs, as they approach Hanoi railway station, Vietnam’s oldest, dating back to 1902. This canary-yellow pile of bricks and mortar has witnessed several conflicts, but a B-52 carpet-bombing during the Vietnam War hit it hardest, obliterating the central hall. It was rebuilt in 1976 — the same year the formerly communist north and democratic south were reunified following the North’s victory and 20 years of civil war. A historic moment consolidated by parallel metal lines.
Some structures come to define a nation. For Vietnam, that is the North-South railway, also known as the Reunification Express: a 1,072-mile steel spinal cord that curves the length of the country from Hanoi in the far north to the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City (still called Saigon by locals). Its formation and history mirror the fluctuating fortunes of the country, and to ride these rails is to traverse not only timelines of major events but also religious and cultural divides between the Catholic north, with its French history, and the Buddhist south, which bears American influences.
The first tracks were laid in 1899 under French colonial rule, with the (unsuccessful) aim of stealing the lucrative Indochina rice market away from shipping companies. It took another 30 years to piece together the separately constructed sections, during which time steady jobs with good salaries were flowing and the proverb on everyone’s lips was: ‘If you want a good life, marry a railway man’.
In 1936, a locomotive travelled the entire length of the Transindochinois line — as it was then known — for the first time. The journey took 60 hours, but passengers had a cinema car and a hairdressing salon on board to help pass the time.
Two decades later, the railway was to play a key role in the conflict that raged between north and south for almost 20 years. “The railway tracks became the rope in the tug of war for power during the Vietnam War,” says Tim Doling, a railway historian and author who lives near Saigon.
In the centre of Hanoi sits another squat yellow building. As I walk towards Hoa Lo Prison, the humidity and high sun slow-cook me until I’m a gravy of sweat and sunscreen. Prisoners incarcerated here during the Vietnam War nicknamed it the Hanoi Hilton — an ironic reference to the appalling living conditions inside. At its peak, 3,600 captives were squeezed into a space made for 300. I wander the shadowy corridors, noticing the iron bars in the envelope-sized windows that had been strained apart by desperate fingers. And in the solitary confinement cells — where the floor was set at an angle so shackled prisoners couldn’t lie back without the blood rushing to their head — oedema and scabies were rampant.
