To make a long story short, we arrived in Beijing with no place to stay - having only just found out before getting on the 30 hour train ride. Luckily, Jon knows people, and people know Jon, so we got a floor to crash on for a while. Sweet. Thanks Adam, Andy, and Shamus. And a howdy doody to Tony. One of the first things we did upon arriving in Beijing was go to visit Jon's high school host family. "Ma" was there and "Ba" was on vacation, while Jon's host brother was at uni. It was good seeing here and [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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We (sadly) left Da Nang on boarded the "Reunification Railway" to the deep south. Only being a few hundred miles away, the bullet train only took 16 hours. We slept the night away and woke up at 5:00am to the blaring sound of "Saigon Dep Lam, Saigon Uh, Saigon Uh... La lalala la" - translation: "Saigon Beautiful, Saigon Uh, Saigon Uh... La lalala la". We soon got off and hoped onto a five hour minibus ride taking us almost to Rach Gia, but our destination was the small town of Tan Hiep. Along the way we had to cross the Mekong [View Full Entry]

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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.... [View Full Entry]

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Continuing down the cooridor, we spotted a building that said Passport check. Though the building was not gated in and we could have easily just walked into Vietnam into the parking lot, we decided to enter legally. The customs officials were friendly and jovial and were laughing and asking for help with their English. After entering the country, we hoped on the back of two motorbikes, driven by some kids, and drove the couple of km to Dong Dang, where we caught out minibus to Hanoi. The bus was US$1.50, and took about 2 hours. We also got our first cup [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Ni hao! Oh how the fresh smell of sweat dripping from your body mixed with humidity and pollution attracts the mosquitos. We first went to our hotel, Xinlong, to take a nice, cold shower. Our room was on the 4th floor, facing the Suzhou River. We watched the barges float by and the construction on nearby buildings, as well as senior citizens practicing the age old Tai Chi. The hotel was $10, and we could only stay because Jon spoke Chinese - no English here. Our biological clock was off and we went roaming the streets at 5am. and made our [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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For an extra 15€ (euro) we hoped on a train and in a few hours was in Prague. Our railpass gives us 1st class tickets, but the ticket in the Czech Republic was for second, so we were kicked out at the border and sweated our way to Prague in a second class non-air conditioned, no open windows, compartment. But feel free to unbutton your shirt completly like the local, hairy bellied men. Our train took us along the Vltava River from Germany to Prague, and it runs bellow some beautiful cliffs and scenery. Arriving in Prague, we realized they didnt [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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