Amazing trans-mongolian adventures
I'm back! Sorry about the lack of updates - we've been setting a mad pace and it's hard to find Internet access, as well as a bit of spare time. But we're in St Petersburg at the moment, on our last day in Russia. We've had an amazing journey from Beijing, through Mongolia then across Russia to Moscow, and now we're in St Petersburg. I'm having the time of my life - just can't believe how quickly it's going!
Anyway, high-time for an update....
From the start...
An early morning departure out of bustling Beijing and we were on our way to Ulaanbataar. The train trip was pretty good - relatively clean train, met some great people (I was sharing my cabin with a Mongolian family who all spoke really good English and were up for a chat). Caught up on a bit of sleep too - the 3-and-a-half weeks on the go through China finally had a chance to catch up with us. The scenery on the way to Mongolia was amazing - mainly wide open grasslands, then eventually desert-like landscapes.
The border crossing (which were promised would be the most "fun" parts of the train journey) took place at about midnight at a town called Eirlan. We weren't allowed to jump off the train, so we stayed in our cabins for over three hours while each carriage was detached from the train, moved inside a giant shed, lifted off the bogies, and replaced with new bogies (the tracks in Mongolia and Russia are a slightly wider gauge than the Chinese tracks, so to move into Mongolia we needed new wheels!). It's a long process, and there were about sixteen carriages in total! But kinda cool. So, after another passport check at the Mongolian side of the border, we were in Mongolia!
We had a couple of days in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia (small, population of only about 800,000). Not sure what I expected, but it was a great little city. It looks a little run down with some fairly bland Russian style buildings, but it's actually a surprisingly modern city full of quite laid back, friendly people. Great beer (the local beer is Chinggis Beer, named after their hero Chinggis "Genghis" Kahn - in fact most things in UB are named after him!), and extraordinarily cheap, though the local vodka is by far the cheapest vodka I've ever come across - equivalent to $1.80AUD for a 1.25 litre bottle - and it's actually kinda nice. Noy heaps to do in UB, but we tried out some of the local restaurants and bars, checked out the largest Mongolian monastery (with an enormous buddha statue 25m high and weighing-in at 20 tonnes, and was built recently to replace the original, which was solid gold but was sent to Leningrad during the Russian communist movements and melted down to make bullets) and checked out the Zisan war memorial (on the highest peak in UB, and presents an awesome view of UB and the surrounding snow-capped mountains.
Before leaving Mongolia, we also spent a night out at a ger camp (traditional Mongolian tents) out in the Mongolian countryside. Did some horse-riding on some less-than-predictable horses (oh, and it was freezing out in the open). We got a chance to do some walking through some gorgeous hills, mountains and grasslands - the place is actually quite desolate and brown at this time of year, and has a little bit of snow-covering, but you can just imagine how awesome it would be in spring. The ger tents we stayed in were very cozy indeed - in fact with the open fire that the owner kept alive throughout the night, it was like sleeping in a sauna... 100 degrees inside and minus 10 outside!
Then it was on to our next leg of the train journey - the most event-filled - for the 4-day trip across Siberia and Russia to Moscow. Some of the crazier things that happened on this trip:
Time's running out at this cafe, so I better post this now. Next post will update you on all the happenings of Moscow and St Petersburg.
Anyway, high-time for an update....
From the start...
An early morning departure out of bustling Beijing and we were on our way to Ulaanbataar. The train trip was pretty good - relatively clean train, met some great people (I was sharing my cabin with a Mongolian family who all spoke really good English and were up for a chat). Caught up on a bit of sleep too - the 3-and-a-half weeks on the go through China finally had a chance to catch up with us. The scenery on the way to Mongolia was amazing - mainly wide open grasslands, then eventually desert-like landscapes.
The border crossing (which were promised would be the most "fun" parts of the train journey) took place at about midnight at a town called Eirlan. We weren't allowed to jump off the train, so we stayed in our cabins for over three hours while each carriage was detached from the train, moved inside a giant shed, lifted off the bogies, and replaced with new bogies (the tracks in Mongolia and Russia are a slightly wider gauge than the Chinese tracks, so to move into Mongolia we needed new wheels!). It's a long process, and there were about sixteen carriages in total! But kinda cool. So, after another passport check at the Mongolian side of the border, we were in Mongolia!
We had a couple of days in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia (small, population of only about 800,000). Not sure what I expected, but it was a great little city. It looks a little run down with some fairly bland Russian style buildings, but it's actually a surprisingly modern city full of quite laid back, friendly people. Great beer (the local beer is Chinggis Beer, named after their hero Chinggis "Genghis" Kahn - in fact most things in UB are named after him!), and extraordinarily cheap, though the local vodka is by far the cheapest vodka I've ever come across - equivalent to $1.80AUD for a 1.25 litre bottle - and it's actually kinda nice. Noy heaps to do in UB, but we tried out some of the local restaurants and bars, checked out the largest Mongolian monastery (with an enormous buddha statue 25m high and weighing-in at 20 tonnes, and was built recently to replace the original, which was solid gold but was sent to Leningrad during the Russian communist movements and melted down to make bullets) and checked out the Zisan war memorial (on the highest peak in UB, and presents an awesome view of UB and the surrounding snow-capped mountains.
Before leaving Mongolia, we also spent a night out at a ger camp (traditional Mongolian tents) out in the Mongolian countryside. Did some horse-riding on some less-than-predictable horses (oh, and it was freezing out in the open). We got a chance to do some walking through some gorgeous hills, mountains and grasslands - the place is actually quite desolate and brown at this time of year, and has a little bit of snow-covering, but you can just imagine how awesome it would be in spring. The ger tents we stayed in were very cozy indeed - in fact with the open fire that the owner kept alive throughout the night, it was like sleeping in a sauna... 100 degrees inside and minus 10 outside!
Then it was on to our next leg of the train journey - the most event-filled - for the 4-day trip across Siberia and Russia to Moscow. Some of the crazier things that happened on this trip:
- Smuggling jeans, rugs and other assorted merchandise across the Russian border for our provodnitsas (the carriage attendants - kinda like air hostesses) we had things stuffed under our mattresses, behind our bags, and anywhere else - they sell it in Russia, but you're not really supposed to take large amounts of goods into Russia without paying a lot of tax...
- The extraordinarily thorough customs check at the Russian border (but in the 5 hours the process took, they didn't find out about our contraband...)
- The Mongolian traders taking over the train - actually, this was one of the craziest and most ridiculous things I've ever seen. After the Russian border crossing I had a whole cabin to myself, but at 3 am in the morning, just inside the Russia, the train was swarmed by Mongolians with ridiculous amounts of jackets, clothes and all sorts of other things, and the train was alive for hours while they frantically stuffed everything in every available space - it was quite a shock to wake up to find three Mongolian women piling bag upon bag on my bed, moving my stuff around, making more noise than I think I've ever heard - and this was going on throughout the entire carriage and the entire train.
- The market stops - every now and then, the train would stop for 20 minutes or so at a station and it was madness every time - the train turned into a market on rails - all the Mongolians were frantically trying to sell their gear to the crowds of people that were waiting for the trains at the station. I really can't describe how bizarre it was!
- The amazing scenery (yes, there were some moments of serenity when we were between stops!) - particularly waking up one morning to the sight of Lake basal (the deepest lake in the world, 636km by 60km, and - interesting factoid - holds one fifth of the world's fresh water) completely frozen over. It was just white as far as the eye could see.
- Almost missing the train - the trains depart from stations without any warning - after jumping off to buy some food and water, we noticed that the train had started to roll out. We were lucky to be close enough for a quick jog to jump on, but a few of the others had to just drop everything and madly sprint, just making it before the train picked up speed!
- Getting Russian lessons from the guy in the dining car - so we could hit Moscow armed with a few random phrases.
Time's running out at this cafe, so I better post this now. Next post will update you on all the happenings of Moscow and St Petersburg.
posted by Steph and Dan Rasmussen @ 4:54 pm
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