WEATHER: Inside carriages a freezing 10C - heater wasn't working / Outside 2C
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Leaving my jewellery ( 2 rings and a pair of earrings ) at the hotel in Beijing.
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY : Jewellery getting found and they are going to hold it till Julia returns in May
BUYS OF THE DAY: 6RMB dumplings for breakfast. That’s .92 cents for 10 – they are the BOMB.
WORD OF THE DAY: - ‘Don’t go Russian on me’ ( having a go at the Russians cheerful demeanor - NOT )
Another early start. 6.30 am departure for our walk to Beijing Railway Station, which was only a 10 minute walk away. After shuffling and getting barged through a security check point we headed for our platform and our first look at the Trans Mongolian train standing there waiting for us! Our first section is a 30 hour stint from Beijing to Ulan Bator – with our train leaving at 7.47am and arriving in the next afternoon at 1.30pm.
As there are 7 of us we have split into 2 sleeper cabins. The ‘noisy’ cabin is next to us consisting of Mel, Chrissy, Eric and Jesse – we are calling ours the ‘sanctuary’ cabin with Julia, Bill and myself. So far we don’t have our forth roomie, which will be a local random, but that is fine by us as we have extra room to spread all our ‘stuff’. The cabins, if you have traveled on European sleeper trains, are very comparable if not a little better to them. There is plenty of room for our large backpacks under the beds, which fit with room to spare and also the large ledge above the doorway, which we haven’t even had to use! This is a Chinese train we are on now, into the border of Mongolia we stay on the same train and then when we leave on the next train a few days later, we will be on a Mongolian train and then the last of the great train journey will be completed on Russian trains. We have been toId that the Chinese trains are the best out of them all, which have a dining car and our meals included, but we lose the dining car on the Mongolian trains all together but get it back for the Russian trains.
By the time we got all settled, lunch was served at 11.30am. It was basic but tasty meal consisting of a chicken dish with onion and capsicum and a plate of cooked celery ( sounds ordinary ) but was quite tasty served with a bowl of fresh rice. Chopsticks only, so you will need to BYO fork if you wish. I have one packed, but as the meals progress I am getting better at using my chopsticks. Poor Bill was struggling just about eating one rice grain at a time – needless to say he is going to take his fork to dinner!!! Dinner was also a simple affair at 5.30pm served with 2 meat balls, a plate of cabbage ( once again very tasty for a non cabbage eater ) and rice. Sometimes simple meals can be the best meals of all. We were told to stock up on snacks, but they have been readily available at the stations where we have stopped twice in China. We really didn’t need to bring too much as it has been surprisingly good.
We stopped at a place called Datong for 25 minutes where we have noticed the elevation is going up as out ears are popping and our snack packets look like they are just about to burst. We also stopped at Zhining for 15 minutes. Our next stop was the border of China and Mongolia for 3 hours at 8.30pm.
As we are traversing the Gobi desert the air is so dry, which was fine for the first few hours, but as the journey went on the small sand / dust particles got into the cabin and you can now smell the dust in the carriages. Julia said this is the first time it has been this bad and now there is a lot of sneezing and sniffling in the group. You just feel like there is a fine layer of dust on your body. It is bad enough being on a train for 30 hours but add in the mix of the dust and it just pushes the limits a little. This is travelling – so we just add that to the experience!
Each carriage has an attendant. So he takes care of the linen, tickets, questions ( not in English-so don’t bother ), looks after the cleanliness of the toilets etc. Speaking of which the toilets are pretty stock standard for a train. All aluminium with a small tap to wash your hands, not too smelly considering they are unisex and yes your bi-product goes straight onto the tracks when you use the foot pedal to flush. But they are western toilets, so you will hear no complaints from me. And just for the record, the toilets are closed when in stations, so there are no do-do’s or smells to be left behind when the train departs. The attendant is also the man to watch at the stations. He stands at your carriage door the whole time we are there, so the second he disappears, you know you have to be back on the train ASAP. We have joked, but can you imagine being stranded on a Chinese platform in the middle of the Gobi desert as your train pulled out with the rest of your group on board – yep – don’t see the funny side to that but would make a good story one day I spose – just not with this duck let me tell you.
Boarder Formalities are just like anywhere else in the world when crossing by land. We reached the Chinese boarder at 8.30pm. Not only do we go through customs and passport control here, they also change the wheels on all the carriages, as Mongolia has a different railway track to China. So we have 16 carriages, each carrying approximately 42 people, give or take as they have a few VIP carriages that’s approx. 672 people to process, let alone the changing of the wheels process added to this it is no wonder that it took 3.5 hours to complete the Chinese formalities. The authorities are quite thorough, checking each carriage and under our beds and the local also get their bags and boxes checked. The airconditioning vents also got checked! We then moved through no mans land – the space between China and Mongolia that doesn’t belong to anyone. There is 35 minutes of no mans before getting to the Mongolian boarder and the same process again occurs. It seems to be an organized well oiled machine, with very serious looking officials swarming all over the train. The formalities were finished within 90 minutes and at 1.30am with passports back in hand we entered into Mongolia.
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