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Published: August 22nd 2008
Jon's birthday present (July 22) was an adventurous train ride from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Beijing. Boy oh boy, what a treat. Ok now I'm bored.
The first leg of the trip was riding the entirety of the "Reunification Railway" from the southern tip to the northern tip - Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi - 30 hours. We boarded the train late at night and slept our way back to Da Nang. We had heard the ride between Da Nang and Hue was spectacular, and did not want to miss it. The ride was beautiful and the slow incline up into the mountains, hugging the cliffs, gave us an expansive view of the ocean from above. It wasn't just beautiful, it was breath-taking. Worth the trip. Though it only lasted about an hour.
That night we fell asleep on the train again - after a long day of rubber-necking - and woke up in Hanoi at 4:30am. We got off the train and did not even leave the station, since we boarded the early morning train to the border of China, where we had crossed into the country a few weeks earlier. The ride was about 5
hours, but we made it to the border town, hopped on one last motorcycle taxi, and walked into Friendship Pass for customs (no Chinese gun squad this time).
Welcome to China (again!)
Arriving in China (practically Renmin Bi-less), we caught a fake taxi ride to Ping Xiang, the nearest town. Within 2 hours, we were on another train to Nanning, capital of the province and our gateway to Beijing. The ride was 5 hours long, but we finally made it to Nanning. Before doing anything, we went to the ticket booth to get tickets to the Olympics. Unfortunately, EVERYTHING was sold out for a whole week except hard seater tickets - hot damn hoe, here we go again... It did only cost about $40, but was 30 hours long. We soon went to a hotel and slept for the first time since arriving in Hanoi.
The next day, we got up for our early train to Beijing. The train was new, but the seats in our class were horrible. Imagine an airline seat, 3 seats long, with hardly any padding and no armrests, and unable to lean back. Add to that, the train was overbooked, so not
everyone had a seat. We made friends with some young students taking an exam in China as well as some southern Chinese people visiting family and friends in Beijing. They helped kill the time, but to sum it up the hellish journey to Beijing was difficult - so we got drunk with Saigon rum and crashed on the floor under the seats... much better.
Arriving in Beijing was the highlight of our journey!
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Da Nang from a distance
