Conquering Vietnam's Mount Fansipan, Indochina's highest peak
Reaching the summit of Mount Fansipan takes 20 minutes by cable car or two days on foot. Chris Taylor takes a hike, and enjoys a hot coffee in the restaurant at the top
There's almost always a whiff of romance around boarding an overnight train, and the 9.30pm express from Hanoi to Lao Cai, on the Vietnam-China border, is no different.
Guards in prim nylon uniforms and shiny badges stand on the platform under fluorescent lamps that pierce the evening gloam as a gecko scampers across the side of a carriage, even greener than the paintwork. Whistles blow and a prodigious number of flags are waved as we scurry, like the gecko, into our four-berth compartment.
As the train begins to shunt slowly out of the station, hawkers quicken their step in time with the rolling wheels, tapping on the window with cans of Ha-Noi beer to attract one more sale: a drink or a glazed pastry obtained from one of the dozen French patisseries that line the station forecourt.
The compartment is small, efficient and clean, with a desk lamp and a table on which we slap down playing cards and beer bought from the window-tappers. Before long, though, we swing our legs up onto our bunks and are rocked to sleep in our cast-iron cradles.
