Into Mongolia
Leaving Russia was a 2 night train ride into the heart of Mongolia, our next destination. As I mentioned before the train was really just one carriage that was attached to different trains across the two countries and well over half of these were foreigners, all doing the same ‘lonely planet’ tour as you may say. It was funny to meet all these people who had done similar things to us but we just never saw them, I think its better that you are really just alone in Russia on the trains otherwise it would be a bit like being on a real tour but the train ride was fun having lots of people around especially having Jannina, Juliet and Paulin from Olkhon with us. We crossed the Russian border after about 24 hours on the train, in true Russian style we arrived at the border town around 2pm and didn’t leave till around 8pm, while our carriage just sat on the tracks.
(Russia has lots of vodka options)
We wandered around the tiny, depressing town to stock up on chocolate and vodka and discovered the person carriage that was attached to our train, compleate with armed Russian guards who ferried prisoners handcuffed from the train into a waiting van. A little disconcerting but we felt better after the carriage didn’t come with us to Mongolia. Finally we got stamped out with a token customs checks. When you arrive in Russia you get this little white piece of paper to get you visa registrations stamped which is said to be really important, as is not losing the paper as people say you can get fined up to $500, but of course there was no problem and the guards didn’t pay attention to our carefully set out registrations. Oh well, better safe than sorry I guess.
So out of Russia into Mongolia where the border officials were remarkably nicer. Another night on the train spent playing stupid games and cramming as many people as possible into our little cabin.
(Tom, Jannina, Paulin and Damien inside our train cabin)
We had to travel the equivalent of second class on this train as there is only one carriage so only one option, much flasher but really expensive, almost as much as all our trains across Russia! We pulled into the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaator (or UB) around 6am, nice and early, nice and dark and nice and cold. Luckily the guest-house was there to pick us up along with most of the train who were staying there. UB guest-house is the most well known and a bargain at $5 a night which is great after Russia.
After showering and eating we heading out with the Jannina and Juliet to brave the freezing cold of UB and see few sights. UB is not exactly a pretty city, in fact kind of ugly but it does have its charm.
We checked out a big square with Chinggis Khan (not not Ghengis, Chenggis) statues and then went to the museum with some of the worst taxidermy animals of all time and terrible lighting, some sweet dinosaur bones though as Mongolia has a lot of Dinosaur bones preserved in the Gobi.
After making fun of the museum for a bit we went back for a dvd then out to a totally bizarre Mongolia restaurant. We thought it may have been strip club sometimes. They had us wait for a table in a dusty back room while a guy stumbled in with a girl trying to get her into another back room…it was a little weird. Eventually we got a table and despite my attempts at something non meat I got a plate full of it. Tired and hungry I headed to bed while the others went out to a club.
We had one more day before heading out on our mega Gobi trip and we checked the monastery which was really cool, big area with lots of Monks chilling out and doing morning prayers.
The the rest of the day was spent manically sorting things out for our 2 week van trip, out to the black market for warm clothes (Mongolia is freezing), getting USD out (only to find exchange rate has dropped dramatically…lame), trying to get a train ticket, buying food…it was all way to much walking! But we got it done and had yummy thai for tea before bed time ready for THE GOBI!!!!
Tags: blogsherpa, Mongolia, TRAVELS 2008, ulaanbataar
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