marcandjon

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 ... read more

Welcome back to the next - long anticipated entry of our travel blog! Da Nang: blue skies, white sandy beaches, and clear waters. After leaving the airport, we took a xe om (motorcycle taxi) 11 km south of the city to a more remote beach location (thanks Lonely Planet! - it was about the only thing the book got right in Vietnam - except, of course, which beach the hotel was on and how much it cost). But was paid $9 for the room a night, so we can't complain. As soon as we checked in, we checked out the beach.... Bia in hand and was ready to take a dip to cool off from the tropical heat. The beach was great. There were mountains, islands, and traditional boats in front of us, and trees hugged ... read more

27 hours to Nanning... the closest big city to Friendship Pass (the border crossing to Vietnam). After shopping for food for our long journey, we hopped on board the semi-modern train in a hard sleeper car. Hard sleeper cars have about 20 rows of triple-decker bunk beds. We had to top bunks next to each other. The bottom bunk functions as a bench during the day. The squatter toilets empty out onto the tracks. During our ride we hung out with locals - particularly, the four sleeping beneath us. One guy owned a childrens pet zoo in Shanghai (he claimed to have over 300 dogs), a lady we called Susan from Wenzhou, and two girls from Nanning who had traveled to the outskirts of Shanghai for a job training course in selling furniture. It was a ... read more

Our last Europe installment took us back to Nurnberg to view the Eurocup quarter finals (Germany vs. Turkey) back with our friends. We spent a great evening watching the game in a pub in a small town near Nurnberg where Joachim's boyfriend, Stephane, went to dental school and lived. Once again the excitement in the air was extreme, since Germany was playing Turkey, and Germany has a high Turkish population, there were high tensions. Whoever won this game would play Spain in the finals on Sunday for the championship. Germany won... and the streets went wild. An impromptu parade broke out in the streets. Cars blowing their horns and German flags being waved everywhere. It was a blast. After the show its the after party... On Saturday, we took off to Wortzberg in search of a ... read more

Again, speeding down the Autobahn, we flew to Berlin in about 5 hours. We actually didnt stay in Berlin, but outside of the city about 40 minutes in Joachims family farmhouse. The house was in former East Germany, and it was very interesting to see the differences there. The farms around the house had lettuce patches and horses. It was really quiet and peaceful. We went into Berlin and did some sight seeing. All the neat government buildings and monuments, and then went over to the Holocaust memorial. After that, Checkpoint Charlie, an old gate between East and West Berlin where tensions rose during the Cold War, and also to pieces of the Berlin Wall. That night, we went to the area of town hosting the gay festival that attracted over 300,000 gays from outside of ... read more