ULAANBAATAR - BEIJING

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Km travelled 14440

02.11.08

We wake early morning when the window is still a blank rectangle. A guy at the guesthouse offered
to take us to the station for 2000T, but we suddenly realize that here is too early to withdrawal money, so he will do it for free. When we get to the station Michael puts in his hands all the money we have left and he looks very happy. Outside is very cold, a sharp wind brings snow with it. We sit inside the waiting room. The train slowly slides beside the platform. When it's almost time we bravely cross the snow storm and get on the train. For the first time we share the cabin with another couple of backpackers, Jeroen and Sarah. He's Dutch and she's Danish. They're very nice and we spend the morning engaged in conversations over the world, eating and drinking. The day passed by quickly despite the flatness of Mongolia outside the window. We've been lucky to meet interesting people, I was very pleased. At the end of the day we reach the Mongolian border and after a couple of hours the Chinese one. It was very smooth and easy. We are all extremely excited to get into China. Sarah has a book titled “Train to China” that gives us all the details of our journey beforehand. The most amazing thing is the change of the wheels! It's impressive, and you can barely realize when they're doing it. Every carriage is detached, lifted up about one meter and then the wheels changed. The lifting is so slow that we were stuck to the window trying to understand if we were moving or not. By the time the train is back on its way, it's quite late, almost midnight. We go to sleep impatient to see China.

03.11.08

It's a wonderful sunny morning. From my upper bed I try to spy the world outside with the sun straight to my eyes. We stop at a station. Who got up early gets off the train for a little walk. In the cabin they're all sleeping. On the platform the carriage attendants stand in their perfect uniform. I see the first man wearing the red bend on his left arm. When the train leaves the city I can look down immense craters dug in the ground to host the feet of new developments. And a small old house standing alone in the middle on a soil pillar connected to the edge by a narrow strip of land.
One by one everyone gets up. We have some coffee and muffins. It's too late to claim our breakfast on the train. But not to claim our lunch, so we make a first attempt to reach the restaurant. It's been a failure, because unlike Sarah thought reading her book, China is not one hour forward Mongolia, so the restaurant was still closed. Unfortunately also the second attempt ended up being a bit of a failure, as the meal wasn't any good. Back to our compartment we look at hundreds of factories smoking, at the river outside the window turning into lake. We look at small fishing boats sleeping on the water.
After a descend into a canyon and a long series of tunnels, we finally arrive to Beijing. Outside the station is time to say goodbye to our mates. We cross the road and we enter our hostel. Great. I already like the feeling here and we need a bit of city life. The hostel is good, I like it, it has everything we need and is very cheap.
We take a rest for a while, sort out our stuff, and in the evening we go out for dinner and a first glimpse of the city. We decided to walk to Wangfujing Daije and its “snack street”.
This is the city of blinding lights. Sings and displays changing colour continuously, bright windows, shops, restaurants, stalls. We have a walk around, enter few shops. Then we enter the gate of the snack street and a new world unveils to our eyes. We walk through the crowd among food stalls selling anything you can possibly put on a skewer, from glazed fruit to tentacles, scorpions still moving, and seahorses. Chinese people love food on skewers! We loose ourselves into the crowd and we walk like kids at the amusement park.

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