In the area around the old train station – where the time is always 8.02, according to the clock – and along the tracks just south of there, you can explore a treasure trove of crumbling, French-era repair sheds, warehouses and rolling stock, evocative of times long gone. Check out the wagons’ constructor’s plates: some read ’1930 Koln’ (Cologne, Germany).

German reparations from WWI, perhaps? Or maybe the wagons were confiscated after WWII and shipped out here in the last days of French Indochina.