Today began at midnight. Most days technically do but after several hours of nothing we found ourselves at Erlian, the town on the China side of the border with Mongolia.

Here we were to present our passports for customs and immigration for the first of 8 border crossings we were due to make. It was an opportunity to get out and walk around, get some fresh air and see the outsde of the train. It was not, however to use the bathroom or any electricty, including reading lights. For 5 hours. So with boredom and urinary urgency building in equal measure we decided that the changing of the bogies (wheels) on the carriages to fit the Soviet Mongolian tracks was utterly enthralling. So will you. Watch it, watch it now. Make it last 5 bladder-bursting hours.


For our efforts in the field of continenece we were rewarded by a salute from the Mongolian Customs official. We thanked him by relieving ourselves all over his country at the first available opportunity. Welcome to Mongolia.

After a fitful, broken sleep we woke up in the Gobi desert. 'Gobi' means desert and technically most of it isn't one. Go figure.


None-the-less it was interesting, foreign and a very different landscape to the mountains of China. Vast openess without (as astutely pointed out by... someone?) fences that usually dissect open spaces in other countries. This is still the land of Nomads and wild horses afterall. However, it was pock marked by small settlements, seemingly without roads or reason. Without wanting to sound rude "Why on Earth (literally) would you live there?" There is no discernable topographic or geographic siginificance to the location. No river, mountain, forest, rock or anything to define it. No obvious advantage to settle this site at all. Yet there they are. Bewilderingly and impressively persevering.



A new dining carriage had been covertly joined to our train at the border. This was a Mongolian car with impressive wood carved interior. Less impressive was the four fold increase in beer price. It was, however, cold. For some reason, the Chinese seem to think of bar fridges as expenive glass fronted cupboards. It was rare to ever receive a Coke or beer below room temperature. And so we sat as our long, green train snaked it's way throiugh a much-less-boring-than-expected desert towards Ulaan Baatar.

On arriving into Ulaan Baatar we had spied our hotel and the apparent equivalent of London's London Eye (turned out to be the National Amusement Park - every nation should have one). On the platform our pick-up was harder to spot. There was a predicted swarm of those offering taxis but no discernable exit or meeting point for the station. Having heard the horror stories of bags, and persons, being held for ransom in taxis from the station we were reluctanat to engage anyone other than our appointed transfer - despite the fact the hotel was alsmost in eyesight and being completely overcharged for the pick-up. In the end we found our driver and were glad we did not have to brave the utterly unpredictable Ulaan Baatar (or 'UB' as people kept saying that "People say") traffic with bags and coats in tow.


It's hard to know where to start with Ulaan Baatar (or UB as they say). The word juxtaposition is prentiously over-used but perhaps should be reserved for locations such as this. Where else can you see a steel & glass sky-scraper rise out from a dirt & plastic bottles footpath. Where else do you see brand new Porsche Cayennes swerve recklesslesly through traffic around soviet era troop carriers with no road rules what so ever? Where else do people dress to the nines to walk down dirt roads? And where else can you get impressively good European/International cuisine but quite poor Mongolian? Only in UB. We saw gleaming Ferraris parked in the dirt encircled parking lots of museums to Soviet dictators long since usurped. Horse and cart farmers drwaing produce along beside Range Rovers with equal right of way (where there is any). Glamorously dressed girls speaking fluent English to overweight, late middle-aged men presumably invloved in some mining contract to provide yet another local with another Hummer (of which UB posesses the highest ratio per person).

It was from the maelstrom contradiction that we retired to the Silk Road Bar & Grill, as recommended by Lonely Planet etc. The English was good, the beer affordable and the food,as mentioned above, surprisingly good. And who else should arrive but the loud, fat travel writer from the train along with his publisher, Magnus. As you may have noticed we can't remember the writers name but who forgets a name like Magnus? We sat seperately but could faintly over hear what sonnded like a lovers tiff between the two of them about thhe amount of time "Writer" was spending drinking rather than writing. How familair.


Early in the evening we retired to the Hotel Bayangol and it's amusing sports and music televison with mixed views of Mongolia/UB. One side seeing the poor infrastructure, petty crime, chaotic traffic, suspicious followers, delipidated suburbs and opportunistic commercialism as anxiously exciting. The other enjoying the exotic deprivations, bizarre incongruanices, conspisous wealth & poverty and easy Westernisation. Put together we still probably weren't right.