Following my recent experience travelling by night train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok in Thailand, I thought it would be a good idea to try a sleeper train in Vietnam as well.

It wasn’t exactly that.

I bought a second-class ticket in a sleeper carriage from Hanoi to Da Nang.

My journey in a nutshell

I travelled in October 2026 on train number SE3.

• Route:Hanoi –> Da Nang
• Class:2nd class, air-conditioned 4-berth sleeper compartment (soft sleeper)
• Price:1428000 vnd for a lower berth
• Journey time: 16 hours
• Times:departure 19:05, arrival 11:05 the following day

I was expecting something like an open carriage with individual berths, similar to those in Thailand.

Instead, I was given an enclosed compartment for four with absolutely no privacy. This really wasn’t great.

Why did I take the train and not fly?

Actually, really just to see what it’s like to travel by train.

I was heading to Vietnam primarily to review VietJetAir’s first direct flight from Prague to Hanoi.

So I planned my trip so that I’d really get to know Hanoi properly and go on a night-time train journey.

From a practical point of view, I don’t think the train journey from Hanoi to Da Nang makes any sense at all:

• flights run on average 3–4 times an hour
• the price of a flight ticket is usually lower than that of a train ticket
• the flight takes 1.5 hours, compared to a 16-hour train journey

And actually, the argument about saving a night’s stay in a hotel doesn’t really hold water for me either. Although you’re travelling whilst you sleep, you won’t arrive in Da Nang in the morning. You’ll arrive just before midday, which you could also achieve with a morning flight. And accommodation in Vietnam can be very cheap. You can easily find a room with an en-suite bathroom for 12 eur.

View hotel prices in Vietnam

How I bought my ticket and how much it cost me

Buying train tickets in Vietnam is very straightforward.

I used the official website of the Vietnamese Railways,dsvn.vn, to make my purchase.

The English version of the website worked without any problems, and payment with my international card went smoothly too (I use Revolut).

If the Vietnam Railways website doesn’t work for you, I recommend the tried-and-tested search engine 12go.asia, through which you can also buy train and bus tickets across Asia.

I received a link to the ticket via email, which you can then download as a PDF to your phone.

There’s no need to print anything or exchange it for a paper ticket at the ticket office.

When boarding the train (in my case, already inside the station building), you simply show the QR code. There were no ticket checks on the train during the journey.

Download your ticket in advance so that you can access the QR code even without an internet connection.

Price and advance booking

Prices are not dynamic, so you’ll pay the same whether you book 20 days in advance or just 1 day in advance.

I paid 1428000 vnd for the bottom bunk.

Advance booking varies depending on the service and the length of the journey. For long-distance trains, tickets often go on sale around 60–90 days before departure, but tickets for individual sections may become available later. If you want a specific lower berth, I’d book it as soon as it becomes available.

• Find out more about domestic travel in Vietnam

Finding a shower before departure

An evening departure always has its pros and cons.

You have the whole day to explore the city. But at the same time… after a whole day of exploring the city, I personally always need a shower.

Especially before a 16-hour train journey.

Unlike stations in Thailand, Hanoi’s main station isn’t equipped with showers.

I used the luggage lockers here for 50 000 vnd for 4 hours (cash only!), and there are also some fairly clean toilets available free of charge.

There’s a café with a small shop, but it’s quite expensive, so I’d recommend one of the usual convenience stores like Circle K instead.

However, there’s no shower here.

I’m a bit of a princess when it comes to this sort of thing, I admit, so I booked one night at the cheapest hotel near the station – specifically, MyHaus Apartment.

Through Booking, the room costs around 21 eur, but when I got there, I arranged with the receptionist that I really just wanted to use the shower and ended up paying 400 000 vnd in cash.

First impressions of my compartment: zero privacy

Boarding takes place 45 minutes before departure.

My carriage, number 11, is right at the very end of the train. From the outside, the carriages look clean and neat.

On my SE3 service (one of the Hanoi–Saigon express trains), there is no first-class carriage, only standard second-class with couchette berths or second-class seating.

Whilst in Thailand, for example, 2nd-class berths are in a shared open carriage, here there are compartments for four. Two berths at the bottom, two at the top.

I definitely prefer the Thai version. Paradoxically, there’s actually much more privacy there.

On Thai trains, each berth is separated from the aisle by a fairly opaque curtain.

That was completely missing on my train in Vietnam. In a four-berth compartment, there’s absolutely no privacy.

What’s more, the compartment walls and doors aren’t soundproofed at all, so I can still hear noises from the whole carriage. This completely negates any advantage of having a compartment for me.

What are the toilets like?

The first thing I go to check is what the toilets are like. After all, over the course of 16 hours, I’ll probably have to use them several times.

Each carriage has its own washbasin with a mirror, which is handy for things like brushing your teeth.

And there’s also a standard toilet. It’s quite clean at first, but as time goes on it gets in an increasingly poor state, as nobody cleans it during the journey.

What’s more, there’sreally very little space in the toilet. I can barely fit in there, even though I’m 175 cm tall and not particularly overweight.

Where’s the dining car?

I’ve read in various forum posts and articles that almost all Vietnamese trains have dining carriages.

Well, certainly not on mine. To be honest, I was really counting on it, and apart from some water and two apples, I didn’t buy any food.

I spoke to a local man who was travelling with me in the compartment about the dining carriages, and he insisted that he’d never seen one in Vietnam. Apparently, he travels once a month, so I’m not sure.

💬 Do you have any personal experience of travelling by train in Vietnam? Have you ever been on a traditional dining car? Let me know in the comments, thanks!

You won’t starve, though.

Several times throughout the journey, stewards walk down the aisle with food trolleys:

• in the evening and in the morning with pho soup (though the locals had warned me off it beforehand, so I didn’t try it)
• and at random intervals throughout the journey with pastries, sweets, dried meat and drinks

Every carriage has at least one vending machine with cold and hot drinking water.

I had banh mi twice, but I won’t lie to you – it was nowhere near as good as the banh mi you get on the streets of Hanoi. Just a dry roll, occasionally filled with meat.

To go with it, I had a typical Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk in the morning, which was much more enjoyable.

How I slept on the train

I won’t lie to you, but I slept very badly.

First, the positives:

• a long and wide bed
• clean bed linen
• the option to switch off the lighting in the compartment (you can switch on your own bedside lamp)

Unfortunately, however, there were far more negatives:

• no privacy (not even a curtain by the bed)
• no soundproofing: you can hear absolutely everything from the corridor and neighbouring compartments
• no proper blanket, just thin bed linen
• a very uncomfortable journey: the track hasn’t been modernised and the carriages are quite old, so the train really does sway and jolt all the way
• only one power socket in the whole compartment

The air conditioning felt as though it was set to a much more comfortable temperature than is usually the case on trains in Thailand, for example.

The temperature in the compartment remained between 22 and 24 °C throughout the journey, but even so, I’d pack a jumper, long trousers or a sleeping bag.

I actually felt quite cold at times under the thin blanket.

All in all, I slept for about 4 hours in total during the 16-hour journey. Well, next time I’ll definitely fly and spend the night in a hotel – even a cheap one, if need be.

• View hotels in Da Nang
• View hotels in Hanoi

A bed, even during the day

Whilst on sleeper trains in Thailand, and indeed across Europe, it is standard practice for beds or couchettes to be folded up into seats during the day, this is not the case on Vietnamese trains.

The berths in the compartments are fixed: they cannot be folded down into seats.

That’s why, for example, I highly recommend booking a lower berth if you’re travelling alone.

In that case, you can remain seated on ‘your’ bed even during the day and enjoy an unobstructed view from the window.

If you’re sitting on the top bunk, you’ll need to be lucky enough to have a fellow passenger who might let you sit down below during the day.

Otherwise, you’ll have to spend the whole day lying on the top bunk with a very limited view of the outside.

The most beautiful part of the route: Hue–Da Nang

I deliberately chose a train that would travel through a relatively dull, flat stretch whilst it was still dark, and then, once it was light, through one of the most beautiful sections of the Vietnamese railway.

This section runs through the Hai Van Pass between the historic city of Hue and the resort town of Da Nang.

Here, the track winds quite steeply up and down along the dramatic coastline.

There are breathtaking views of the sea, the rugged coastline and the densely forested mountains.

I really enjoyed this, but it would have been quite enough just to cycle this 3-hour stretch from Hue to Da Nang or vice versa.

What to take with you on the train

I’d definitely take these with me on a longer train journey.

1. Plenty of food and drink. A trolley with refreshments does make its way through the train from time to time, but it’s really just a stopgap: bread rolls, biscuits and the like.
2. Warm clothing. A thin blanket in an air-conditioned compartment might not be enough for everyone.
3. Earplugs. You’ll often hear the typical rattling of the train, but mainly the noise from other passengers.
4. A large towel or piece of fabric to use as a screen if you want some privacy. The berths do not have their own curtains.

Night train or aeroplane?

In Vietnam, I’d go for the plane.

In the end, the night train on this route made absolutely no sense to me.

I didn’t get any sleep (and I think even travellers used to long night journeys would have a problem with this), and I didn’t save any money at all compared to flying (in fact, the train ticket was more expensive than the plane ticket).

And, in fact, it didn’t really make the most of the time spent travelling during the night either.

I didn’t arrive in Da Nang in the morning, leaving me the whole day to explore the city, but only just before midday.

I could easily have managed that on a morning flight from Hanoi.

So, as far as I’m concerned:

• it’s definitely worth taking the train from Da Nang to Hue – the journey is beautiful and takes 3 hours
• there’s no point in travelling overnight – for me, it was uncomfortable, expensive and the experience was far worse than on a train in Thailand