あなたが絶対に乗らない共産主義列車（その理由をご覧ください）🇻🇳
Hello world. It’s Vagabond here. Welcome to
Vietnam. This is the beginning of my freight train adventure in this lovely Southeast Asian
country. The entire railway looks very Soviet because signaling, overall look of the railway
in China, in countries of former Soviet Union and here in Vietnam are more or less similar.
So this kind of the socialist standard. I see that there is some train which is currently
arriving at the yard. Seems to be intermodal one. There is such a lovely rural area around the
marshalling yard. I see fields with many plants. I clearly see that people plant cabbage here,
some vegetables. I found the potential approach to the railway station. There is this kind
of a ladder which you can kind of climb and see what’s going on in the yard. So there is
this kind of a passage. That’s the intermodal train which has just arrived here. Okay. Based on the
fact that there are no trains to hop on right now, we can just kill time somewhere around,
potentially find a better approach to the railway or maybe… accept communism. There’s actually
the entire mural glorifying communism. It’s depicted on on the fence of the railway station.
On the left there is basically Vietnamese flag and the flag of the communism party as far as I know
with this hammer and sickle. This is one of the symbols of Hanoi: the flag tower, and that’s the
continuation of the mural. Military as one of the symbols of communism apparently, children, just like
family of workers, so working class, the importance of working class. And the main symbol of communism is basically hammer and sickle. We are learning some basics of Vietnamese language with this lovely guy. “Sin tao ban toi” means “Hello, my friend” – Hello my friend. 52. two
– Oh, the guy is 52 years old. How old 52. *unrecognizable* Boy. Boy. Boy. Boy. Boy.
Uh-huh. It’s a man. Jin. Boyfriend is a man. Jin is a son.
Oh, I don’t really understand. What does it mean? Jin.
Yeah. So, totally random experience here in Hanoi. I was just sitting over
here and this guy just approached me, decided to talk to me a little bit. Now we are
trying to communicate via Google Translate using gesture language and things like that. This man is
basically a street barber. So he’s doing haircuts for people. This is his workplace.
– Cut hair, cut hair.
– Yeah. Exactly. That’s what he’s doing for business. He’s currently showing
me the process of smoking tobacco here in Hanoi. This is his personal tube or pipe. It’s not
even the cigarette. So, he puts tobacco here, ignites it. – Good?
– Good. Great opportunity to see how the street
barber in Hanoi works. So, basically, this is his workplace. It’s literally on
the street. A person just came here, asked for the haircut, and here we go. So, I just randomly found this coffee shop on Google
Maps. It has not bad score. So, let’s just visit it for a cup of coffee. – Hello.
– Hello.
– Uh, can I have a coffee?
– Coffee? Black coffee? – Cappuccino.
– Cappuccino. No, we only have … – Oh, black is okay.
– Black or brown?
– Black – We have black coffee with condensed milk.
– Yes, that’s exactly what I want. – Okay.
– Yeah. Usually people just add regular milk to the
coffee and this is how we have cappuccino, but it’s a bit different story with Vietnamese
coffee. Alright, let’s taste the coffee with condensed milk. Yeah. So, it’s basically a
sweet kind of coffee, but instead of sugar, we can clearly feel this kind of condensed
milk. It’s also served with ice. There is a little bit strange after taste. I’m not sure if
it’s caused by this kind of condensed milk or just by the water which was used or by
ice but it’s a little bit like… you know it’s a little bit unpleasant after taste. Tastes like
sweat, you know? Literally like sweat. People’s sweat but you can tolerate it. Also there is this
kind of complimentary drink or something. I don’t know what’s this. It’s not water. It’s
not juice. Such a weird yellow substance. The bartender of this coffee shop happened to be
so welcoming. He is basically the son of the owner of this coffee shop. It was opened
by his mother some years ago and yeah, he speaks fluent English and I managed to
communicate with him. He also shared with me some kind of the local chewing gum. So it’s
kind of the plant which you have to chew and uh when you chew it you can basically extract
water from it. So you make it like this and start chewing it and when you finish chewing
it, when you extract the whole water from it, you just get rid of what has remained, so you do not
swallow it. Yeah. It actually tastes a bit like a chewing gum. So it’s an interesting way to avoid
dehydration by just chewing this kind of thing. It’s basically a smoking pipe, kind of massive… – The water will throw out, you just like this.
– Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, we’re going to try this. Fingers crossed I will not pass out.
– Stronger. … the sound. Yeah, it’s quite strong, but it’s doable. It’s hard to smoke. I mean,
it’s a good portion of tobacco in your lungs. Bloody hell. Okay, back to the main street
of the neighborhood trying to find a place where to have dinner. And most of places
seem to be closed, strangely enough. So, probably I’ll just need to carry on walking
and I’ll eventually find a place. Apparently, I found a restaurant, but good luck crossing
the street. There is not a single traffic light, so I just need to start walking at some point.
Okay, now let’s see what’s going on here. Yeah, we can still walk. Okay, I made it to a reasonably
looking restaurant. Ordered beef noodles. So, let’s see what can we have for $4 actually. So,
a portion of beef noodles is going to cost us $4. It’s uh twice more expensive than the same
portion at a street food cafe or restaurant, but it’s okay. All right, so this is what you can
get for $4 here on the outskirts of Hanoi next to the railway station. It looks like a decent
portion of beef noodles accompanied by some vegetables and tomato. What can I say? Noodles are
pretty much okay. They went out there pretty thin. Still eatable like quite delicious. So they were
also served with soy sauce, with fresh cucumber and also I got a juice. Eating this kind of thing I’m practicing eating with chopsticks. So, I already developed this kind of skill. I realized
that initially it was quite complicated for me, but currently it’s totally fine. So, I’ve
learned the technique and it’s just fine. I eat with sticks every single day. I’ve just
had a nice meal for $5 plus spend two more bucks for groceries which I’m planning to finish
during the evening. Probably I’ll just return to the spot and we’ll continue waiting for the
proper freight train. So today I also have a night shift because I badly want to catch… at
least something. Finally, I’ve caight the Vietnamese cargo train. Empty gondolas. Exactly what I was looking for. So let’s see where we will be able to get by this train. I’m very close to
the locomotive. Hopefully I will not be caught. Okay, so far so good. We have passed
the first station after Hanoi and yeah, we are rolling further. It’s good. Okay, yellow signal for us. Doesn’t sound promising
because it’s just the second station. So, I’ve been riding this train for maybe 20
minutes only and we already about to stop. I don’t know what was happening here, but the
train has finally departed after 25 minutes in the yard. It actually seemed that they attached one
container to this train, to the rear of the train, but I’m not exactly sure. I couldn’t see
it properly. And also the biggest question, where are we go? because this is the junction
point. So we either go towards China or towards the dead end near Hanoi. Based on map, we are
going towards China, not to that stupid dead end. Well, at least it’s going to be a decent
long ride up to 300 km if I reach the border. Okay, I’ve just seen two yellow
signals which means that they are going to park the train on the side track. Okay, decided to change the wagon because
I was too close to the locomotive. Let’s get a little bit back.
All right, the journey goes on. I switched the wagon. This one sounds
very loud, but it is how it is. So, we passed the passenger train and carry on moving. Okay, we are departing from a fairly large
railway yard where my train spent more than 1 hour. And I think that
there was a crew change. So, the journey goes on. Let’s enjoy the ride. Good morning guys, I’ve been in this train for 8 hours. and it already got bright. So, it’s
morning. And it’s actually the most dirty day in my entire journey. So, I’ve been traveling
for two months right now. Just look at that. Yeah, generally speaking, the train is running
slowly. That’s why it’s hard to predict when it will reach its terminal station. And what the
terminal station is actually going to be. There are two options. Either this train
is going to the border station with China or it will be dropped like abandoned a little bit
before it where is the junction to some mines. I like the fact that while riding this
train, we can enjoy agriculture of Vietnam. I can see how people plant rice for
example, vegetables and other cultures. Okay, it seems that we are just passing by a loaded freight train. Exactly
the same one but with cargo. Rain. That’s exactly what I need right now.
Perfect. Let’s turn dust into the mud. Time to have at least some kind of meal. I wouldn’t
say that this is breakfast. This is Red Bull. This is Choco Pie. So that’s it. Luckily the rain was short and we on the road again. It’s 70 km left to the border. Hell knows actually when we’ll
reach it because the train is relatively slow. Even when it runs between stations, its speed
does not exceed 50 km per hour. Not a good sign, guys. We are passing by
exactly the same train, but my train is dead right now. Okay. Apparently, my train has
been entirely abandoned here because for 3 hours, nothing is going on in the yard. Still 70 km left
to the town where this train was supposed to go. But yeah, I mean, oh, wait a second. Actually,
something is going on right now. Finally. No, you know what, guys? Actually, I realized that
maybe I shouldn’t leave that early because I still have some time. And basically,
the place where this train happened to be abandoned. There is no reasonable way
to get out aside from taking this train. When I got off the train, I was about to move. I
was actually about to leave the railway station, but at the very last moment, I noticed
that the engine of that diesel locomotive started working again. And yeah, I
noticed that they started shunting and it got clear to me that they were about to
start moving further with this train. So, luckily, I managed to see it. I took
a pee, then got back to this train and currently riding it again. So we are moving
further northbound toward the Chinese border. Don’t know about you guys, but I’m personally
tired of riding this train. I’ve been on this train since 9:00 p.m. yesterday, which means
that tin total, I’ve already spent 17 hours in this freaking gondola. So, I’m tired of
it. The train is so slow. So, probably I’ll just get off the train at the next station,
which is going to be… like a local junction. Just look at my backpack, guys. How am I supposed
to clean it? I have to take it to the laundry as well. Most definitely. Otherwise, I will not be
able to clean all of this dust. Strangely enough, the train is passing by the station where
I was thinking it was going to stop. 200 m away from here is the junction. So,
the train either turns left to mines or carries on moving towards Chinese border. So,
basically the train has just turned from the main line to the branch truck of one of the mines.
So, I just got off the train. There was no sense for me to go further following this railway. So
yeah, I mean I still have covered significant distance by this train, even though it took me way
more time than I initially expected. Yeah, while cleaning my clothes I didn’t even realize that I’m
staying next to tiny bananas. Look at them. I mean these are smallest bananas I’ve ever seen. They’re
still green. So even climate of Northern Vietnam is suitable for planting them. I ended
up in a pure Vietnamese middle of nowhere. I mean, it’s just a small town in Northern Vietnam where
nothing is going on. That’s the feature of local small towns. I mean, they’re super chill. Super
chill. There is a lot of Vietnamese flags. There’s not so many of them in Hanoi, but in provincial
towns, which I noticed, there is a lot of them. People in Vietnam don’t waste their land. And they
occupy every single corner, every single portion of land to cultivate plants. I’m quite hungry
right now. So before moving somewhere further, I’d like to have a meal cafe. Oh, cool. Yeah, it seems to be a local cafe or
something. This is how I figure out basically these Vietnamese cuisines. So I just use
Google Translate, turn on camera and it automatically translate things uh to English
language. So I can photograph it and see the translation. So they have some fried rice,
some chicken, boiled eggs. Can I have this? Mhm. Cha cha cha. Okay. One thing which I
noticed about Vietnam is that even in some remote locations, in small towns, when you go
to the restaurant, they perfectly serve the food like a proper restaurant. The fried rice
with some vegetables, corn, nuts, surprisingly, and kind of a salad with beef. How lovely.
And the portion of this cost just $2. $2, guys. And $1 for the drink. Yeah, it’s
very nice. It feels like it was fried in some sauce or something. I feel some kind of
like either soy sauce or teriyaki sauce. And uh it tastes very nice. Let’s go to salad part
basically with beef. Mmm, exceptional! Very very nice. Some nuts. Basically salty peanuts. Perfect.
Yeah. Here we go with corn. I’ll try it later. And um yeah, what’s this? Just some green things.
Perfect. Very balanced meal, by the way.
They say trains in Vietnam can take you anywhere. But not this one. This is the kind of train no one talks about, the kind that doesn’t appear on maps or timetables. It’s noisy, slow, and definitely not built for comfort. Yet somehow, it tells you more about the country than any guided tour ever could. In this video, I took a route few would ever consider, and for good reason. Here’s what happened.
Itinerary:
00:00 – Exploring the train yard on the outskirts of Hanoi which is a starting point of the trip
01:42 – Strange encounters in Vietnam
03:50 – Trying local specialties
08:16 – The train journey that you would never consider
20:04 – Vietnamese middle of nowhere
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38 Comments
Riding freight in Viet Nam is next level. Amazing adventure.
You crazy for this one
Despicable, what they do to animals in this country. Can't even watch them
Have you ever been caught when train hopping. This one was a long ride 😀
Fantastic stuff. Thanks a lot for taking us to places off the beaten track.
It honestly looks like a beautiful way to explore the country. Besides the obvious dangers, just an open carriage and the country air going along freight lines really appeals. Passenger trains often miss a lot of the really interesting areas of the country.
The complementary drink is usually some kind of green tea.
Legend Vaga
I feel like the amount of vegetables that vietnam produce and eat is a good indicator to me that they know what they are doing with their society.. its mind blowing to me how much greens you get served for FREE with almost every meal there. In my home country New Zealand, its almost unaffordable as a working class citizen to even buy daily greens. We make it out that we are such a advanced agricultural society but do not come anywhere close to Vietnam even after they have been destroyed by two of the biggest worlds super powers in the past 100 years (France and USA)..
Random thought to me but I think we are taught a lot of nonsense about this special country
You have the strangest taste buds I have ever witnessed, vietnamese coffee tastes like sweat?! 😅 Its one of the best styles of coffee in the world with beautiful flavours.
Good stuff as always! Hope it wasn't demonetized!
Everytime you visit some place you should make a haircut/massage video. these are uber popular to watch and interesting too.
Socialist trains are much wider than in Western Europe. I think it is good.
16:28 такое впечатление, что глубина у этого вагона по пояс, стоя в полный рост там не спрячешься.. Спасибо за атмосферное видео)
Love the barber ripping his thuc lao then lighting up a cigarette right after 😂 hope you are doing well Vanya
You could try talking russian to older vietnamese people. many of vietnamese elders learned russian in school.
wedgetables , its the best. Also the part @10:17 where the over pass shadows subsume all light in the empty train cars as you continue. I don't know what is was about that- it felt like cinema.
Even a re-upload is a good upload. Love it!
what rock has this dude been living under? that "some kind of a plant" you chewed is what the rest of the world calls sugar canes. yes, your dandy bags of refined sugar comes out of them! also, vietnam's rail system is not much a "communist" thing as you misinformed. it was actually built a hundred years ago by the french, and thus, way outdated.
Vietnam is a fascinating land!
Have you watched Vagrant Holiday ?
Are you a big fan ?
Where did that cool guy go ?
This is a great way to see what Việt Nam is actually like! No tourist bs.
Thank you for showing us!
incredible video, that's real adventuring!
You were literally just steps away from my house. I live just around that part of that alley
Always interesting to watch. Thanks
Don't associate everything with communism 😂
A backpack cover or something as simple as a plastic trash bag can protect it and keep it cleaner. Thank you for the videos. I wish I had done this stuff when I was younger. 🙂
please stop with the clickbait titles.
Is this a reupload?
Oooo yeah, some right vagabond content. More like this man
8:17 – I think I can see true passion for your train hopping adventures, Ivan 😃👍 before this channel I never really paid much attention to jumping in trains but now I see the point: it may be dark, dirty, hot as hell, raining, muddy, uncertain of the direction; but the views and the travel itself makes it all worth it 👌🚆
Hello bro kapan kapan naik KA kereta di jakarta tanpa bayar ya salam RFDAOP1JAKARTA di Indonesia
2:19 why not use ChatGPT 4o's voice mode?
What a wonderful train ride and the best part is that you end up in a place tourists will never see. The food in these places really looks good and it's probably because they have not yet been corrupted by over development and food is still grown and prepared in the traditional way. The so called developed world can learn a lot from this if only they realised what they have lost. As for communism, I believe this was a truly dark part of the country's past but these days Vietnam is only communist in name and there is probably a lot more freedom there than in many western nations. In fact democracy has been hijacked and has totally failed. Where is the freedom in a country that has a law for everything and where there is no leeway for people to make their own decisions and accept responsibility for those decisions? And where is the freedom in a country where crime is so bad you dare not go to some places for fear of being robbed or worse? Of course, Vietnam still has a long way to go and it is far from being free from a regime that still has too much power over its people and let's just hope they don't make the same mistakes as countries like China which sadly has a bit too much influence.
FYI, one of the large language models would work much better as a virtual translator. ChatGPT is probably among the best for situations like that, since it supports many languages quite well and has a voice mode. DeepSeek might work better for English–Chinese translation, but I’m not sure if it has a voice mode (probably not). You could also try Gemini, since you probably already have it on your phone.
A vagabond and his trains…it’s a beautiful thing.
Dude don't drink strange yellow liquids if your coffee tastes human LOL
another cool video thanks for showing us Vietnam. stay safe bro!