The Train To China

Another massive night, this time after all swearing we would have an early night after the final night in the Ger, put the success of catching our train in jeopardy, but MG somehow got us there in time. Dancing to totally random Mongolian pop and techo music in the bar at the front of our hotel, after being booted out the back door from one of the many Irish bars, we all seemed to get very carried away. Such fun!

A whole lot of napping started out this leg of our train trip from Mongolia to China, before we came to darkness with the timezones and the sheer distance covered. This also meant that the true Gobi Desert passed us by in darkness, which is a shame. The border crossing this time consisted of passport checks, but also a wheel change for the whole train...while we were on it.

Quite a bit of shunting around, and waiting, our carriage was eventually rolled into a shed where we where lifted up, and the wheels below were replaced with a different size, to fit the Chinese rail lines. It was quite bizarre seeing the section of train next to us being raised, or merely being noticeably lower than us when we were raised, with travellers that we had met waving to us from that disconnected part of the train.

A few rounds of vodka shots, our last of the Chinggis batch, saw out Mongolia for us.

Not thinking we were being inconsiderately loud this night, and given the fact that we were being displaced onto a new set of wheels at midnight, and therefore everyone was still up and about for the experience, we were totally bemused by the group of French tourists in our carriage waking at some ungodly hour and singing hymns (or something) at the top of their voices, imitating our group's laughs and voices, before they got off the train a few stops before us. The French are funny buggers, aren't they!

This leg of the trip was actually the least local mingling of the train trip, with large groups around our 2 allocated cabins this time. Nevertheless, we were excited to wake in a new country, ready to explore a new city.

*This post was meant to be published yesterday for NaBloPoMo, but no chance to be anywhere near a computer! NaBloPoMo fail!

Mongolia

After our late, late night out watching the World Cup, we had all thought that the early morning hour long bus ride would be a chance to have a nap. Oh, how wrong we were - one of the bumpiest rides of all time had us leaving Ulaanbataar for the countryside, and our destination for the next couple of nights. Passing several large tourist camps almost an hour in, we were hoping that we were not in one of the over commercial.

Vodka Train proved to us, with our small, tucked away camp with just 6 ger tents, that this tour group really was made for the independent traveler with some travel experience criteria. Over the hill, but out of sight was a bigger camp, in which we could access for meals and somewhere to hang out, but our little camp was pretty genuine in that there was no electricity, no running water, and each had a little potbelly stove in the centre, used to heat the tent at night.

Out here in the Mongolian countryside, there was nothing around but vast mountain ranges, and green lush land. This was quite the experience!


One of the highlights was a visit to one of the nearby nomadic family's ger tent, and having the woman of the house serve us foods she had prepared that day, including yogurt. We got to meet her two children during the visit. We had stopped off to buy gifts when we were still in town, and Harris' water spray, which seemed ridiculous to the rest of us, was such a hit with the young boy. Of course, jumping around and playing games with Harris would also be a delight for any 4 year old! He had meet his match!

The morning of the second day, our group went horse riding, out there on the Mongolian plane. Scary, as I don't remember when I had ridden a horse last, these horses kinda know the drill with taking groups, but would still take off at the slightest encouragement. On the race back to the starting point, when each horse just seems to take off independent of anything the rider may do, Jess took a tumble off, and whilst ok, scored some ripper bruising!

Here at the camp, our group got to hang out with the group going the other way, and here we each tried the famed mare's milk. Like fizzy yogurt...ew. This night proved to be quite a big night inside one of the gers, with beers and vodka shots all round. Such fun.

These couple of days out at the ger camp was one of the most amazing, and real experiences I have ever had.

The Trans-Mongolian Railway

Back on the train for a couple of days, we rode through more of the Siberian countryside, with villages and towns passing the carriage windows. More vodka, more hanging out in the cabins, more meeting fellow travelers, and catching up with the Spaniards we had meet on the last train. The toughest part of this couple of days was the 8 hour wait at the border between Russia and Mongolia...where nothing happened for 7.5 hours. Then there was train shunting with some of us on the train, and a couple of us watching from the platform.....and then the searches and passport checks by the very serious officials, and we were on our way. We then traveled the 30kms to the next town, inside the border of Mongolia....and waited, and then went through the same checks.

When we reached Ulaanbaatar, we were met by our awesome Vodka Train Honcho, MG. She took us to check in and shower, and then led us through the city to have breakfast and visit the Megjid Janraisig temples. Here we wandered through the complex, with included a walk through one temple in action, with monks chanting and drums sounding. Was surreal!

Catching public buses through the bustling city, we then visited the Zaisan Memorial, which gave us the most amazing view of the sprawling city below us, and the vast expanse to the horizon.









MG then took us to the Mongolian BBQ restaurant for an all-you-can eat, which ended up being a physical challenge for some of the group. Speaking of being uncomfortable, we were later taken to a theatre show of some traditional Mongolian dance, and one very disturbing display by a young female contortionist. Ouch!

The evening consisted of taking in the World Cup, in a massive 'Cup Land' set up in the forecourt of an Irish pub. We managed to have a great night for the 2 matches that didn't matter to us, and met the Vodka Train group who were travelling in the other direction. Then the Aussie game was on, against Germany, and we discovered that half of Mongolia had actually completed their studies in German universities, and thus, had a very loud affinity with the nation. Belinda and I seemed to be the only pair of Aussies in the pub at the start, and as the early hours ticked over, and the score line grew more and more grim, we called it a night.