Darren weblog

We arrived at UB station for our final Trans-Siberian train – it was train #6 and has turned out to be the best one yet! The train pulled into the station at 07:30 prompt with the Mongolian train wardens stationed at their doors. Immediately we knew it was a new train Once on board, the train looked pristine – it even had a shower room! And a power socket in the individual cabins which meant I could track the train all the way from UB to Beijing – <<check the route map here>>. We shared with Marius and a tour guide for another group – all was well and the journey began!

We knew we had the Mongolian/China border to cross, which this time meant 2x passport control and 1x wheel change!! Yupp, the track width in Russia and Mongolian (imposed on them by the Russians) is different to the standard width used everywhere else in the world!

Before the border we visited the restaurant car which was to say a little busy! But Chris & Carol used their elbows to great effect and we had a table quite prompt! The only food was the set menu which for train food was quite good. With a border crossing due, drinking beer was a risk as they remove access to toilets for the border.

The Mongolian border was swift as was the Chinese – which left only the task to change the wheels! This was done by splitting the train into three and shunting us into a shed. Each carriage was then lifted, the Russian boogies removed and Chinese ones pushed under. The whole task took a few hours and gave opportunity for some unusual photo’s!

We awoke the next morning to fantastic views of rural China and then our first sight of the wall! The train then climbed over the mountains and descended into Beijing. Everyone on board is extremely excited for Beijing – bring it on! . I think we will start to get some use from the “Point it” book – thanks again Benny & KT!

We arrived at the camp late morning and once we were shown to our own private ger (we both thought we would be sharing a ger with umpteen people) we decided to have a nap -  we were up at the crack of dawn! In fact, before dawn!

The layout of a ger is very simple. In the middle there is a fire (very essential), then on the left (as seen from the door) is the male bed, right the female bed. A bed is framed and looks like a 6 year old girls bed – but bigger (thankfully). The only other furniture were two chairs, a dresser, a little table and a some very small stools. Our camp had electricity so there was a light.

After our nap we had our first food at Elstei. Lunch was a salad, then soup with meatballs then a vegetarian potato curry with a poached egg and rice – all very nice indeed! Desert was a banana milkshake. After lunch we chilled in the ger with a fire and our books – I planned out Japan (we are there very soon!) after finishing my final book – doh! But at least I discovered in the Japan book there is an English book shop to be visited – thank god we are there soon as I am left with only Pride & Prejudice.

Dinner was another excellent example of Mongolian food. Again dinner began with a salad then potato soup, which was followed by EXCELLENT dumplings Dumplings are definitely a new favourite – can’t wait to cook them at home for everyone, but my money is on Bear being the biggest fan! After dinner that night we were told it was the last time the camp would be so full (68 people!) so they were throwing a party! The party consisted of the guides all singing the Mongolian national anthem then playing musical chairs! Fortunately I lost! We then got down to the serious business of sheep-ankle bone game with much beer & VODKA! As the bar was closing Alex decided to buy all beers left behind the bar (a good achievement for $30!) and we carried on in the ger. I fought to get a fire going – being drunk does not aid fire starting! We eventually got to bed late!

The second day at the camp was for horse riding! After enough beasts were saddled, we were mounted and told how to  make them ‘go’ – you say ‘chu’. Well, I said ‘chu’, ‘shu’, ‘shoe’, ‘ssss’ but nothing worked – they just followed the guides horse! After a little while they did respond and a me, Trustin and Scott broke away from the main pack, well, actually we galloped – OH MY GOD – how f&%king scary! We eventually go to the Gengis Karn monument after c.1.5 hours of riding and was of course by now saddle sore! But we had to get back to camp yet! Another 45 minutes we were back at camp and time for Karen to go from scared to petrified as her horse new it was time for disembarking, de-saddling and back to the wild, so he gave Karen a fright when he started to “nnnaaaaaahhhhhh” more so than during the trek!!

Once back in the camp we had lunch then, again!, a nap to sleep off the hangover. Horse riding does NOTHING for a bad head let me tell you! Our final dinner at camp was a delicious pasta & mutton dish which was extremely tasty. The camp chef was from India, which showed through in his cooking, which was always a delicious mix of Mongolian & Indian tastes – top marks. The ger camp was definitely another highlight of the trip to date, we have both said we would love to come back in the summer time and also visit the Gobi desert too! We shall see!

Rising at 05:00 the final morning for a trip back to town should have been uneventful. However the clapped out Toyoto dislodged its battery connection whilst driving over what they call roads, we would call dirt tracks. Given the sun had not risen yet this could have been a disaster – but once the guy wiggled the connection (obviously happens frequently) we had light and were on our way to the station, for what turns out to be the best train yet…read the next blog for more…..!

Yet another early start for our 06:40 train from Ulan-Ude to our next stop – Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia! For the first time luck went our way and we managed to get first class (or a 4 berth for just the 2 of us, as the train didn’t have a 1st class carriage). Anyway it was nice.

The journey was the longest ever as it involved crossing the border from Russia to Mongolia. We sat and waited for 7 hours on the Russian side (without access to a toilet!) and 2 hours on the Mongolian side (again without access to the toilet) – night mare! We managed to pass the time reading, playing cards and playing my new favourite game – chess! (Great purchase from the Irkutsk market for two squids).

Arrived into Ulaanbaatar at 06:00am, where our guide met us and proceeded to show us around some of the sights in the city. We probably weren’t the most interested as not only was it stupidly early, it was freezing and quite frankly all I wanted was to be back in bed. As part of the city tour we were also down to see the local Buddhist temple, which didn’t open until 9.30am – we had 3 hours to kill in the freezing cold in a city which was closed as it was so early!

Straight from the station we were taken to a lookout over the city where we got to see the sun rise, then to the main square and the government build of UB – this building was an interesting mix of old style architecture and modern glass/brushed metal which was very charming. If only the Scots had seen this before they built Holyrooyd – they would have had a better building and saved a future probably!

After a coffee, little walk and nap in the car, we got to see the temple, Mongolia’s biggest Buddha and a service taking place which involved a lot of chanting, throwing of rice (how bizarre!) and regular people off the street fighting to get their hands on some pieces of cloth that the Lama’s were holding. All very interesting.

Eventually time had come to drive out to the ger camp – this was the real deal of the stopover in Ulaanbaatar and we were both keen to get there to check out our ger (Mongolians version of a wigwam!). On the drive out to the camp we passed lots of gers dotted around the city – quite crazy for the capital city!