Ulaanbaatar mile 5519
The short journey of 700 miles to Ulaanbaatar some how takes 34 hours, but that is only 2 nights and one day so very manageable compared with my last journey of over 70 hours. The train departed at 20:45 local time so I had the day to cook lots of food for the journey (look at me making a packed lunch for the first time ever), on finding my cabin I was confronted by my Mongolian room mate asking me to pretend here bags were mine as she was over here baggage weight. I made it clear that how I did not mind putting here bags under my seat as I had room I was no way going to pretend they were mine at customs. After we had set off she gave some of here baggage to some other Mongolians in the next compartment. She came back in and we chatted about the deference in out cultures and at what age you are expected to be married by, and she gave me a cup of Mongolian tea which is tea with milk and salt!! I can only assume that someone was playing a trick on the Mongolians along time ago and they switched the salt and the sugar bowl.
On the trains the Provodnista is in charge of keeping every one in check, the place clean, the heater stoked up with coal and making sure you are awake up in time for your stop also plays here music over the Tony system, you can turn it off in your cabin but someone next door had theirs turned up full blast, the first night we were subject to what appeared to be the full Mamma Mia sound track in Russian and the second day a mix of Russian pop and hip hop.
We arrived at the Russian border town of Naushki at 13:00 which is when I started to understand why 700 miles would take so long. My Mongolian cabin mate enplaned that we would now sit at the station unlit customs arrived at 17:00. Passport control arrived at 16:30 and we were stamped out of Russia and customs arrived at 17:00, we eventually got moving at 18:00. After the short crossing into Mongolia we stoped at the Mongolian border town of Sukhbaatar where we went through the same process and then had to sit on the train until we were linked up to the 21:20 train to UB. The whole process tool a little over 8 hours. On arrival at Sukhbaatar all the Mongolians got off the train as apparently it is cheaper to buy a new ticket for the same train here, leaving only the unknowing Brits, Australians and Danes on the train.
We arrived in UB at just after 6am and I was grateful that my guest house had a free station pick up service.
So far along the way I keep bumping in to the same people, not surprising as there are only so many hostels along the route; but today I met a girl from the year below me at school!!! Talk about a small world. All together now “it’s a small word after all, it’s a small world after all, it’s a small, small world…”
P.S. My new phone dose not work here so please use my old number until I leave Mongolia.
