Vietnam’s Reunification Express celebrates a double anniversary, and keeps getting better with age

It’s dark when we board the SE8. Conductors stand along the train, helping sleepy passengers find the right carriage. I’m unreasonably excited for someone who’s been up since 3am. We’re about to ride Vietnam’s Reunification line, covering the 1,726 kilometres from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in one rolling swoop. With luck, it will only take 34 hours. I can’t wait.

This year is a double anniversary for Vietnam’s cross-country railroad. It debuted 80 years ago as the Trans-Indochinois in French colonial Asia. 40 years later it became the Reunification Express, the premier line of the new Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

In between, the railroad lay in pieces. It was fractured by mines during the second world war and the First Indochina war, officially severed across the 17th parallel in 1954, bombed again in Vietnam’s American war. The tracks were stitched back together in 1976, symbolising the country’s reunification after more than a century of imperialism and conflict.

We’re in a first class carriage, called a ‘soft sleeper’. SE trains are reputedly the best on the line, and our compartment mixes luxury with pragmatism. The four metal cots are made up with white sheets and gold blankets. The walls are faux wood panelling, and air conditioning pumps in from the ceiling. Our cabin mates are already asleep in the upper bunks.

At exactly 6am the train lurches into motion. My husband burrows under his blankets, but I stay up, watching dawn break through Ho Chi Minh City’s canopy of tangled wires.

By midmorning, we appear to have reached the American Southwest—all dust, brown grass, and prickly fields of dragon fruit.