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At an average speed of 50 km per hour, the Reunification Express train will get you from HCMC to Hanoi in about a day and a half. It's inexpensive by Western standards even if you go "SOFT SEAT AIR-CON", which is a way of saying "First Class" without having to introduce a class system.

We took this train only as far as Phan Thiet - a small town about 210 km up the coast from HCMC. The trip took 4½ hours. We then took a taxi to Mui Ne, one of many new beach resorts sprouting up along Vietnam's long coastline.