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Published: December 3rd 2010
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Early morning departure today from U.B.. Took a cab to the train station a little after 6 a.m.. Cost of cab about $2. Much better than the walk to the hotel on the way in! Met up with some of the people I have encountered along the way on the station platform. When the train pulled in, I found that Richard from Switzerland and Allan and gf from Sweden are neighbors again. This time I am sharing a cabin. My roommate is Robert, a retired, disabled Vietnam war vet. He lost a leg in action, but gets around amazingly well on his prosthetic one. He’s a really nice guy and has traveled extensively. We have been swapping travel stories and have visited many of the same places.
The train is a brand new Mongolian one, with bright, clean compartments. The First Class compartments share a full restroom with their neighbor. Very nice! And the restrooms all have little sinks, little electric hand dryers and even come stocked with toilet paper! This was not the case with the Russian trains, where you always had to have your own supply. I had pre-stocked with little camper’s rolls (definitely go with the Coleman
rolls over the Coughlin’s). The Mongolian dining car was also first rate. It had a big kitchen with several cooks, nice booths with large windows and a really nice bar area at one end. Most importantly, the food was tasty and reasonably priced. Later in the day I had some type of steak with rice and french fries for about $6.
The train pulled out of U.B. while it was still dark, but soon we could see the rolling Mongolian steppes as the sun rose in the east. We passed many small encampments of Gers, complete with horse corrals. The train rolled through a hilly area where many cattle grazed on the high hillsides. As we traveled south, we lost most of the snow and the landscape flattened out to wide dusty plains with mountains in the distance. We were entering edges of the Gobi desert.
As I said, the landscape was much flatter and soon the encampments we passed had both horses and two humped camels in their pens. Sometimes in the open desert, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we would pass a small group of camels just standing around.
As the sun set, we
Gobi Camels
My guide back in the Ger camp told me that the 2 humped camel is only found in Mongolia continued on to the Chinese border. The stop on the Mongolian side was fairly short, with the usual forms to fill out and the showing of passports. On the Chinese side we had more of the same and then moved off the main tracks to change the bogeys on the train and swap the dining car for a Chinese one. The Russian and Mongolian trains run on a different gauge track (3 ½ inches wider) than pretty much the rest of the world. When you enter China, they shunt the trains off to side tracks, separate the carriages and send them into a giant shed where they lift the carriages up on big hydraulic jacks and switch the undercarriages and wheels. The whole process took about 2 ½ hours and we had front row seats as we were still inside the carriages. Wheels changed and train reassembled, we rumbled on into China.
I had the top bunk and settled in to a comfortable rest. In the morning we were in a hilly, snow-less area, alongside a small river. As we moved into a valley, away on the side of the mountain range I could see the Great Wall snaking
along the ridge. It paralleled our course for quite awhile, before slipping up over the mountain range. We traveled on through hills and valleys southward to Beijing.
The station at Beijing was massive! I said goodbye to the friends I had made on the journey. Everyone was wishing everyone else a good trip. It had turned out that my compartment-mate Robert was going to be staying at the same hotel as I. We had both read the reviews on Tripadvisor.com and decided the style, price and location of the hotel were a good find. I told him I was staying in a Club room which included free in-room internet and free breakfast in the Club Lounge every day. The Club Lounge also holds a daily “high tea” from 5 to 7 p.m., with a small buffet of hors d’oeuvres and an open bar. This clinched the deal for Robert and he decided to upgrade as well. We agreed to share a cab to the hotel, after he purchased his ongoing train ticket to Shanghai in several days (he‘s then traveling on to Vietnam and later to Thailand). Beijing Station is a madhouse and once you leave the platform, you
are out in the square in front of the station. Robert found out he had to go back into the station through a security check to get his tickets. I guarded his luggage out front while he went in. A short time later he returned successfully and after stoping at an ATM to get Chinese money, we were off. Well sort of. Taxis in Beijing are very cheap. The average ride is around 2-3 US dollars. The taxi pirates at the staion wanted to charge us about $50 for the short trip to our hotel. That was nonsense and we bailed out of the cab telling them so. Another cab driver said he would take us to the hotel for the equivalent of $15 US and Robert agreed. I was still peeved, but Robert had a lot of luggage and didn’t want to have to walk away from the station to get away from the taxi pirates. So we piled in and speed off to our hotel.
The hotel is the Capital Hotel, which I am enjoying immensely after another night on the train. We agreed to meet up in the Club Lounge for “tea”, after finding our respective
Treats in the Wufangjing Street
Note the lovely spiders you can eat on the left! rooms and freshening up. My room is great! King sized bed (but traditional Chinese hard mattress), big marble bath with separate tub and shower, CNN and HBO on the TV and even a Kohler toilet! So far the only problem I’m finding is the LAN line internet in the room is slow and doesn’t seem to support Skype or Hava player. And I was hoping to watch the Badgers in here! We also have free wi-fi in the Club Lounge or the Lobby, so I’ll have to go check that out.
So we met up at the Lounge and had some fruit, curry puffs, sausage, broiled chicken and also several liquid refreshments. It was a nice Lounge with a friendly staff. With directions from them, we headed over to nearby Wangfujing Street. The street is an upscale pedestian street mall, with small alleys running off of it selling all manner of food or other items. As far as food goes, some of the offerings are truly disgusting! Most of the foods are things on skewers, which are then deep fried before being given to the consumer. Things like snakes, whole small squids, bugs, still wiggling worms or scorpions, small seahorses, starfish and even sea urchines. I tried a few skewers, but only beef and lamb. Still, my innards may pay for that tomorrow. Various sellers also sold souveners or novelty items. We wandered back to the hotel for a night cap, then up to the room to dutifully continue this blog! Tomorrow, The Forbidden City!
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Elizabeth
non-member comment
Hi
Enjoyed reading this recent blog...wow, China! How many thousands of miles have you gone so far? I will try to check back but because I don't have internet at home right and it's almost time for me to head out of work for the weekend, I probably won't be back on until Monday. Have a great weekend of sightseeing! Let me know if you need a ride home from the airport, etc. E