Any good day should start with a full, cooked, late breakfast and today did. We got beans. This was followed by a stroll around the still partially frozen river the hotel overlooked. Along the way we spotted some tourists on a significantly more substantial horse ride than we had - they must have paid or else had a driver who was monumentally late. We also met a couple coming the other way who were recognisably Australian before they exclaimed "Howyagoin'?" by the fact he was wearing shorts in 1 degree weather.


After this we were hunted by wolves and had to flee for our lives. At least we think they were hunting us. And they may not have been wolves. It was difficult to tell at such a distance. Suffice to say some canines looked at us and started trotting in our general direction. Presumably on their way to take a baby from a tent.


It was odd in a country famous for little else, food-wise, than mutton, that we were to be served New Zealand lamb for lunch. And this wouldn't have been lamb that New Zealand would have been proud of. But the flavouring was nice and represented the last proper meal for the next 48 hours as we now headed back to Ulaanbaatar to board the train for a two-night trip to Irkutsk, Russia.


The hotel driver in an effort to atone being two hours late yesterday was today two hours early. So we arrived with more than two hours to wait in the overcrowded, underlit waiting room. The numerous stories of petty crime we had heard from various quarters, both foreign and Mongolian now came bubbling to mind.


Characters in the crowd ranged from the usual to downright shifty including one young guy who wandered from corner to corner always looking in our direction and occasionally murmuring and motioning to us to an older swarthy man who came & went. Kathryn openly told him off when he started taking pictures of her on his phone. And perhaps there was some justification to our distrust as, after 2 1/2 hours of him not even looking like he had luggage let alone was catching a train, he followed us onto the platform until we decided to stop and stare at him. He didn't like the taste of his own medicine and slunk off back to the station. We got on the train.

On board we shuffled down the corridor with curiosity about who we were to share our 4 bed berth with. The guide books tell tales of Mongolian traders, Chinese business men and Russian soldiers. In our compartment were the two British guys from the last train. In fact almost the entire carriage was white, English-speaking tourists. The only exception were a group of Mongolian women who were busily trying to stuff multiple bottles of Chivas regal into everybody else's compartment but their own. We deposited it back into the corridor which they didn't seem to like. Even the train conductor seemed in on this pseudo-smuggling as she accepted boxes of chocolates and the like to take items on board. She was placing a used tire in a bin bag into our locker as we got on. None of this seemed to bother Simon & James, our British room-mates who, with typical British Imperial certainty, said "We can't get in trouble, it's not our stuff". They had obviously not seen 'Banged Up Abroad'. Perhaps with a little more distrust & Simon might still possess his wallet.

At twenty past nine we set off into the night towards the Russian border. As we travelled we learnt a bit more about the boys sharing our berth. Simon was coming home from a year living in China. Unfortunately his Chinese language skills we no longer of use in Mongolia but this didn't stop him from murmuring Chinese translations to things now and then. He was a keen rock-climber and outdoorsy type and was rarely without a drink in hand. He described his recent love life as being a big girl in the UK and a little girl in China. He was obviously missing the little girl in China so much he had to quickly go and find the Brisbane girls from the Intrepid group who had also joined the train. James, on the other hand, was a quintessential train-nerd. He carried a big camera that was more often pointed at engines than landscapes. His journal kept a dutiful note of the locomotives attached, detached and passed on the journey. Like the writer & publisher we had met earlier they were another odd-couple. James didn't drink beer or enjoy football but kept a written record of who owed who money. Simon was a picture with a large beer in hand, donned in a Man Utd jersey and unsure as to what day it was. What they did share was an odor - neither had showered for nearly a week. Kathryn was living in a pit of boy germs. But the boys were unfailing friendly, fun and great roommates. They had more naivety and adventurousness to them which was enjoyable to hear about. It was relaxing to not have worry about the safety of our too numerous gadgets and bags. We were happy to have them.