Well I got myself to Beijing Railway Station nice and early and took my place amongst the 100 or so sleeping in the train hall. At around 6:30 a little guy came through with a loudspeaker and woke everyone up and made us stand, no sitting. He even spoke through the loudspeaker to people beside him who had asked a question. I think he might be in recovery by now.
I got a four berth soft sleeper on the train and shared with a Mongolian lady, her daughter and and another Mongol guy who spoke a little english. His english came in handy at the border because the Chinese don't issue customs paperwork in english, except the departure card. We're still not sure if we got it right but me and the three Americans in the compartment beside us are in Mongolia now anyway.
The eldest Mongolian lady had so much food for the trip it wasn't funny. Every time she ate everyone else had to eat. Every time I tried to eat something there was a slice of bread to go with it or stock to add to it. I made a comment, which was translated to her, about getting fat on all this food. She laughed, slapped me hard on the knee and said, again translated back to me, "empty belly not like cold nights". I still walk with a limp.
The train snaked through the Great Wall for hours. We got off the train for 10 miutes at Qinglongqiao and had our first encounter with the hawkers. They sell everything from water, beer, chinese style (read weird) snacks, instant noodles (the staple of the trip for many who don't have a Mongolian matron in their cabin) and BEER.
We had a few more chances to get off the train during the day and evening but there is plenty of room on the train and most people didn't bother until we got to the chinese border at Erlian. Chinese customs did their thing and we did some shopping. 90 Yuan (Aus$18) bought me a bottle of Jim Beam, coke, enough food to TRY to feed our cabin and a large dipper of pistaccios(?). So there I was at the Chinese border around midnight with a couple of irishmen, americans and a group of bloody loud aussies in minus who knows what temperature having a laugh in Erlian while they changed the bogies on our train to the narrower guage run in Mongolia and Russia, and waiting to see how our interpretation of the forms went.
We got back on the train and did the short trip to the Mongolian order and went through the customs thing again. It seemed to take ages, the guidebook said 5 hours all up and I think we might've gone over that too.
When we all woke up this morning we were in the middle of a snow storm on the Gobi Desert. The Gobi is not entirely flat and featureles but it'll do for now. There are rolling ridges, you couldn't call them hills, and a light cover of grass in places. The rest is just bare rock or dirt with gers planted in the most unlikely places. All along the line we could see the occasional camel, goat, cattle, sheep, even dogs out on their own trotting around the place. As we got closer to the capital Ulaan Baatar the country gets a bit steeper and has got a lot more snow on it from the last few days. A bit more cover on the hills outside of town and there would be skiing on the agenda.
In Ulaan Baatar now and wont be staying in town long. The place has a name as pickpocket central, it is very plain and uninviting and all the activities are out of town anyway. Looks like it's off to Terlje National park tomorrow.
