"You will take train S-3," she said in English, pulling out a pad of blank tickets. I checked the schedule. S-3 arrived at Cuc Phuong in the wee hours of the morning. I objected.

"S-6 then," she said, annoyed but still polite.

S-6, I pointed out, had left an hour ago and wouldn't be returning for another run until next Thursday.

"There are no other trains," she snapped.

S-8 was leaving shortly after dark, I suggested, and had the additional advantages of being fast and relatively cheap.

"Military train," she snarled. "No foreigners allowed."

Then why, I asked, were the S-8 rates quoted in US. dollars under headings written in English?

"That train is always empty," she insisted. "It would be dangerous for you to travel in it unprotected."

My heart leapt. With our illegal cargo, an empty train was exactly what we were looking for. I assured her I would be well protected by my two strapping young male companions and an assortment of well-armed acquaintances.

"S-8 doesn't go every day," she said.

"But today," I said, waving the schedule, "it goes."

"It's very slow."

Only twenty minutes slower than its brother the express train, a trivial difference over the course of a forty-four hour trip.

"It doesn't stop at Cuc Phuong," she insisted. "You will have to go on to Thanh Hoa."

I thought it over. Cuc Phuong was indeed on the schedule, but if it made her happy we could buy an extra stop and jump off early. I agreed.

She seemed nonplused, but rallied quickly. "You will not be allowed to disembark until the train has reached its final destination in Hanoi," she said. We could then reboard for Thanh Hoa when S-8 made the return trip, twenty-four hours later.

I shook my head. She glared at me. We had reached an impasse.

"I must have words with my boss," she said, and started to rise. I knew she wouldn't come back until I had given up and left the station.

"Yeah, me too," I agreed and stood up with her.

"He does not speak English," she informed me smugly.

"No English? No problem!" I shot back in Vietnamese. She stared at me in surprise, then sat. "Passport?" she asked, holding out her hand. I had won.

I tried to be gracious. "Three tickets please, and thank you for your help."

"Three?" Her smile turned feral. "Three passports please."

I had only mine. It had never occurred to me that we might need passports to travel from one city to another within Vietnam.

"No passports? No tickets." Her ticket pad closed with a snap and was quickly locked back in its drawer. "Come back later."

There wasn't time to cruise the city in search of Jay and Jochen. With no options left, I got loud. When that failed I resolutely climbed the steps to the second floor offices.

"It's lunchtime!" she called after me. "No one home!"

I didn't even hesitate.

"I sell you tickets," she said in a defeated voice. I was back in my seat before she had unlocked the drawer. "You write the other passport numbers," she insisted, pushing a large ledger towards me.

I nodded and began to scribble random combinations. Jochen got my Nissan license plate and my phone number, Jay my mother's birthdate and my bank PIN number. She pulled the heavy binder back. "You must return before six o'clock to present your passports," she told me curtly. I nodded in deference to the face-saving ritual. She wrote out the tickets and handed them to me. Two were in one six-bunk sleeper, the third two cars away. I objected.

"Nothing to do," she said and closed the ticket book a final time. "We only sell two seats per sleeper. The others are filled in Hue."

Hue, I thought, is halfway there. I can make a deal with the conductor long before then. I rose to go.