I feel your pain and you have my full sympathy! Those ‘Vietnamese’ must have been a real pest and a downer to your first class travel! It is so unfair when we cannot get what we want because we have forked out the money to say… purchase some luxury… you know… show the world we live a little better.

Cut them some slacks mate. 88USD is about half an annual income for most Vietnamese, and these trips they take are usually for coming home after being away for months and years at ends finding work from a different city. Though they might encroach in your privacy, this may be the only little luxury they get to share. Not everyone have fat wallets for first class train and plane tickets. It is a big big world, unfortunately not everything in it is made equal!

It was the case 2 days’ ago. And, not only in our cabin: virtually every cabin in our car (and adjacent cars) had adult Vietnamese with between one and three children. Situation was tolerated by conductors to the extent it was clearly accepted and customary. In future, our approach will be to purchase all four seats, close the cabin door, and not open it. We’d advise all westerners to follow this suggestion.

There was just one person per bed, and I haven’t experienced an overcrowded berth yet. Maybe this was the case years before?

Thanks Owen. It must be a small percentage of French speakers now as most people here were born after 1975 and learn English now. I notice that I see more older French tourists in the former Indochina countries of Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos, perhaps expecting to find more French speakers.