I made it to Hanoi early yesterday morning after a 2 day train ride through China and the northern border between it and Vietnam.
The train ride itself was a lot nicer than I’d hoped. The train was comfortable, safe and reliable. Buying the tickets in Beijing wasn’t as tricky as I’d feared and overall it was an amazing journey, giving me a glimpse into China, even though I didn’t stop anywhere along the way. Just looking out of the window was enough to get a sense for the country - field upon fields of rice paddies interrupted by big cities, all concrete tower blocks, dust and factories. At times in the distance you’d see factories pumping out smoke, and as we got further south, jagged rocks and small mountains started to crop up, like those you see on the South East Asian coast, but strangely enough, these were all inland, a weird and fascinating sight. Amidst the fields the sights of people in traditional hats sowing seeds and picking up rice alongside ox pulling carts was a strange - a typical cliche, postcard picture but yet one that is still very true for a lot of rural China.
The cities were also pretty interesting. Having left Beijing’s oppressing pollution and strange architecture, it was actually pretty much more of the same. The influence and power of China’s communist past obviously stretching in all directions, which when you consider the size of the country is a pretty impressive feat. Most of the cities were all concrete tower blocks, dust and busy streets. Very grey, a feeling only made worse by the cloudy sky and huge amounts of smoke emanating from factories both on the outskirts of big cities and randomly found across the countryside.
Arriving in Hanoi, the feeling of chaos and noise I’d felt in Beijing only continued, and much to my surprise turned out to be a lot worse. Though that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As I’m realising now one week into a month in South East Asia, once you let the chaos just flow around you and learn to walk through it rather than be stunned and scared by it, it’s really not that bad at all. I think more than anything, my time in Japan really made me forget how life in a big city can really be, and this sensation of chaos is only amplified by the relative calm and order I came to learn to live with while in Tokyo. And when I say that, it’s not that Tokyo doesn’t have its own chaos, but it really is a lot more ordered and contained than anything I’ve seen on the Asian continent so far.
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