New Year travel chaos hit the nation

Nguyen Cu, a worker from Hoa Khanh Industrial Zone in Danang city’s Lien Chieu district, tried to find a ticket to Ha Tinh province on January 22 night, but all the tickets were sold.

The only available ticket was a seat on a night-bus on January 23 night.

Cu, like many other customers, decided to divide their route to travel on January 22 night. This meant he had to buy two tickets from Danang to Thanh Hoa province and from there to his hometown in Ha Tinh.

“As long as I’ve got the ticket to go home I’m happy,” he said.

On other routes to northern cities and provinces such as Hanoi, Nam Dinh and Thai Binh, there were only a few tickets for sleeping buses. But they would sell out soon, a bus station official said.

In Danang train station, the usual Tet crowds were nowhere to be seen as most customers buy tickets online. However, an official from the station said they only had hard-seat tickets left for peak days.

A passenger who wished to remain anonymous said he was trying to get tickets for three adults and two children from Danang to Nghe An province, but failed.

However, he was offered a night train ticket with a sleeping berth for VND580,000 (US$25.7), equivalent to three seats with only seating. He had no choice but to buy three tickets.

“The price is quite high,” he said, “but we need a bed for the children to sleep on. We can sit on the other beds”.

Reports from the Danang Train Station showed that there were 1,100 tickets on hard-seats available from Danang to Hanoi.

Pham Ngoc Thanh, head of the ticket selling team, said the ticket stations would open around the clock to serve passengers. The team will also provide ticket delivery services.

On switching tickets in the bed carriage, Thanh said the team followed the Vietnam Railways Corporation’s regulation, which allowed passengers to get a bed-berth ticket for the cost of three hard-seat-berth tickets.

This would help tackle the high demand, he said.