Our train at the Mongolian / Chinese border
Sunday 17th May
Our last train.
We have managed to travel from Amsterdam to Beijing by train, and apart from four small backtracks ie Newcastle to Lindisfarne and back, Daugavpils to Riga and back,
Irkutsk to Lake Baikal and back, and UB to Khogno Khan Moutains and back, it has been a continuous journey.
Our train arrived from Moscow and we boarded to find that our provadnitzas were Chinese males. We found our compartment and stored our luggage. It was a little easier as Joan was booked through to Beijing but stayed in UB to join another tour. There were only 3 of us in our compartment, Alan, Merrill and myself.
There are a lot of westerners on this train. We met a Finn who had travelled overnight from Finland to Moscow and then on this train continuously for six nights. Fine if travel is what you are about, but if you want to see and experience the country not too good.
We are travelling through th Gobi Desert. It is very dry and dusty, that is why we don’t open th window and we have a fan in the compartment. We must all be tired as we have all had a sleep and it is still only 1.00p.m.
We have now arrived at the border and have left Mongolia. We have gone through passport control and immigration and now we have been issued with thermometers. All of us in our compartment are OK but we have all been issued with face masks. What Charlies we look.
We will be here for some time as the bogies on the train have to be changed because of the different gauge from Russia/Mongolia to China. The carriages have to be lifted off the track, while we are all still on the train, and the new gauge bogies fitted. We are told that it can take four hours. It is 10.15p.m. so I don’t suppose that we will get much sleep.
