ON THE TRAIN TO SAIGON
By Tony Henderson Environment Editor, The Journal

THE JOURNAL (Newcastle, UK)
February 7, 2007 Wednesday
Edition 1

>>From Wearside to Warsaw – that’s the first leg in a rail trip which
will take three travellers from Sunderland to Saigon in Vietnam.

The journey is from Monkwearmouth Station Museum to Saigon – now Ho
Chi Minh City – the furthest city that can be reached from Sunderland
by train.

Tyne and Wear Museums educational worker Jennie Beale, 31, from Albany
in Washington, is travelling with film crew Jon Pegler and Kate Harvest
on the 9,300-mile train journey, the story of which will be the first
exhibition at the Grade II-star listed Monkwearmouth museum when it
reopens in the summer after a £1m refit.

The travellers stopped in Cologne in Germany where they took a taxi
to their hostel.

Jennie says: "At 3am four rowdy Moroccan boys, who we found out
later had been partying in Cologne after exams, rolled into the dorm
and woke us all up with their drunken antics. Not much sleep for us
intrepid travellers."

After a halt in Berlin, it was on to Poland.

"In the Stadium market in Warsaw we bought our breakfast of kebab
fingers from a small green hut, and the owners told us they were not
Polish, but Armenian.

"The market was full of official and unofficial traders, working
every day in the cold, snowy conditions, with flapping blue canvases
on their scanty stalls.

"The run down stadium where the market was sited, was actually made
from the rubble of Warsaw after the Second World War.

"Many stall holders were Russian and Armenian, making the best living
they could in Poland. It looked like a very tough life.

"The Palace of Culture and Science stands in the centre of Warsaw,
a grand building inspired by the Empire State Building in New York. It
stands at 231 metres tall, the tallest building in Poland.

Originally commissioned by Stalin as a `gift from the Soviet people,
now it is a centre for culture and has cinemas, conference facilities
and a winter ice skating rink.

"Met Olga, who works as a tourist guide in Warsaw. She studied in
Sunderland for six months in 1994, under Professor Derek Blair from
Sunderland University’s Environmental Science department. Olga treated
us to coffee and cakes and we chatted about Poland.

"A striking fact is that 85% of Warsaw was destroyed in the Second
World War, and many of the buildings have been reconstructed to their
original design, a process which continues to this day.

"The beautiful Old Town with the Royal Castle was completed in 1984."

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress