Be the first to experience Vietnam’s new luxury train journey, the Vietage. Photo / Getty Images
If you’re looking for a new way to see Vietnam in 2024, jump aboard the country’s first - and only - luxury rail service; dishing up Vietnam’s best culture, coastline, cuisine and cocktails, writes Claire Boobbyer
Mr Bien, in a cream linen suit, approaches wearing elegant white gloves.
“Lunch is served,” he says. It feels very Orient Express. But, actually, I’m on a train in Vietnam.
Along with a crisp white napkin, condiments and cutlery, an aromatic seafood salad of chargrilled squid, prawns, fried shallots, carrot, green papaya and mint is delivered to my table. Alongside, my drink of choice arrives. It’s the Vietmojito, sexy in a cut-glass tumbler. Made with Vietnamese rum, floral liquor, fresh ginger, lemongrass, mint and basil, the dark rum is topped with a layer of mauve from the colour of Butterfly Pea tea. It’s a knockout, and the penultimate tipple of a suite of cocktails, all railway-themed, and all intensifying in strength on the menu.
Luxury rail travel and Vietnam are not known as stablemates, which makes this journey all the more surprising. I’ve boarded The Vietage, a glamorous carriage that tos and fros from close to pretty riverside Hoi An with its tailor shops and ancient Chinese temples on Vietnam’s mid-waist down to beach and culture spot Quy Nhon, 318km down the coast. The six-hour luxury journey links hotels at Hoi An with those at Quy Nhon. It was dreamt into existence by hoteliers Anantara, who pondered how to transport their guests between its resorts. (Tickets are available to all passengers, not just Anantara guests.)
With the help of Saigon architects Shape Us Studio, Anantara has fashioned a beautiful space from a standard Vietnamese railway carriage, cocooning guests in luxury while they travel up and down the line. The carriage is joined to the country’s Reunification Express, a series of trains that rides the rails from capital Hanoi 1726km south to Ho Chi Minh City.
Comfort is paramount. Curved rattan partitions divide six booths for 12 passengers. I have a comfy seat, a table, curtains for privacy if I want them, a free flow of alcohol, teas and coffees and a three-course meal for lunch. Those travelling on the return journey at night find the seats converted into beds, curtains and blinds pulled. All passengers receive a 15-minute complimentary neck massage from Mr Bien – sans waiter’s gloves – in a little cabin next to the sleek bar – a curved, black marble and onyx counter.
At the bar with our cocktails, I chat to Sue, from the UK, who is on her first Asian adventure then return to the comfort of my little booth with its cushioned seat and views of the Vietnamese countryside.
I see thousands of motorbikers, hundreds of dazzling green rice paddies, dozens of isolated granite tombstones, and gangs of buffalos shuffling in the fields. At 74km/h, it feels like journeying through a flip book of rural life. We pass the East Sea, crumpled hills, and mountains near and far. The track takes us through the heart of towns, too, where diners crowd round tables for noodle soups, and where businesses and motorbikes ramp up the soundtrack. Locals get on and off the train at each Ga, station, a word rooted in Vietnam’s French colonial history.
With five cocktails, specialty tea, divine Ca Phe Sua Da – iced Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk – and my three-course meal, the six-hour journey flies by.
A short drive from the railway station at Quy Nhon is Bai Xep Beach. Just south of here, in a private cove, sit the 26 pool villas of Anantara Quy Nhon Villas. My private pool is shaded by white-petalled frangipane. I take a dip overlooking the golden sand and a fishing boat painted in primary colours bobbing on the calm blue sea.
Having dipped into Vietnam’s tasty cuisine on The Vietage, I’m keen to explore the local food scene. Quy Nhon is at the heart of a huge fishing industry.
With Anantara’s executive chef Vinh, I head to the city’s morning market the following day. It’s crowded with locals who shop fresh daily. Bowls and buckets of oysters, silvery anchovies, snails, huge prawns, crabs, clams, and wriggling fish sit anchored like huge glittering gowns to the female sellers, wearing conical hats, perched low to the ground. The amount of fresh produce is staggering.
Vinh buys razor clams, sea grape, fermented pig skin and pomfret fish. Back at the resort I’m put in charge of the stove. I wok-fry garlic, shallots, and lemongrass before adding the razor clams, chili, then onion, fish sauce, oyster sauce, Chinese coriander and basil. It’s a seriously moreish umami-powered dish, as is the salad of fermented pig skin (a local delicacy). The crispy shallots, roasted peanuts, and pig skin doused in lime juice and mint is a cracker.
Keen to explore more of Quy Nhon’s culinary traditions, I head out with resort guide Thich to a rice paper-making village. The approach is surrounded by green paddies and hundreds of orange-beaked quacking ducks. It appears to be a sleepy Sunday but turning a corner, we come across dozens of slim bamboo racks covered in moon-shaped discs. Locals are drying rice papers flecked with black sesame – banh trang me – in the sun.
Villagers cook up a few thousand papers a day, Thich tells me. Veteran makers Mr Tan and Mrs Thuy are in a concrete barn hard at work. Ms Thuy is sat behind a muscular brick stove powered by a hillock of rice husk. She ladles the snow-white rice mixture peppered with sesame on to a flat pan, smooths it into a perfect circle, and places a big metal lid over it for 15 seconds. Then, using a wooden tool, she lifts the floppy discs on to a circulating wooden wheel where they hang momentarily until Mr Tan lifts them on to the drying racks. His only other job is to shovel rice husks. He definitely has the better deal.
Mrs Thuy invites me to try. I’m steaming with the heat of the factory despite a fan blowing at my back. My papers are reasonable, Mrs Thuy says, and they’ll definitely sell them – about 20 pieces for 50,000 dong (NZ$3.50). Would she employ me, I ask? No, she says emphatically. I guess with all of 10 minutes’ experience at her seat what did I expect?
Back at the resort I continue my taste journey. I tuck into tiger prawn ceviche, asparagus soup, and pan-fried lobster served with a butter and parsley sauce. The coconut creme caramel folded into the coconut husk is a winner. I’d loved my trip on the rails but what I’d loved even more was how my journey gave me a front-row seat on Vietnam’s delicious food. All of it!
InsideAsia has an 8-night trip that includes 3 nights in Hanoi and Hoi An and 2 nights in Quy Nhon with a journey on The Vietage costing from $6660 (excluding international flights). The cultural adventure includes all accommodation including a stay at the Anantara Quy Nhon Villas. All transport across Vietnam, transfers, some private guiding, breakfast every day, some meals and a range of cultural experiences are included. InsideAsiaTours.com
For more things to see and do in Vietnam, visit vietnam.travel
When there's nothing as far as the eye can see, you may appreciate the company.