Great Asian Railway Journeys

Michael Portillo boards Vietnam’s spectacular Reunification Railway to make a 1,000-mile journey from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to the capital, Hanoi. Michael visits the vast container port of Haiphong and finishes in the turquoise waters of Halong Bay. Michael’s 1913 Bradshaw’s Guide unlocks for him the traumatic 20th-century history of today’s Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a former French colony. On this leg, he braves the streets of Saigon - as locals still call Ho Chi Minh City - on a motorbike, one of 8.5 million to do so daily. He attempts the national sport, da cau, and samples French-Vietnamese fusion food. Michael discovers how to make the quintessential Vietnamese condiment of fish sauce and joins modern Vietnamese people on holiday in a replica medieval French village in the Annamite Mountains. In the tailoring capital of Hoi An, Michael learns how the region’s silkworms feed on the Champa mulberry tree and how the Cham people weave their distinctive brocade.