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Train : 'No.004' Moscow to Bejing (6th day on the train).
Its dawn over the Mongolian Steppes and the sun is starting to spill its light through the undulating hills onto the plateaus beyond and our winding route towards Mongolias capital, Ulan Bator. I see many Yurts on the hillsides, some of them secure in fenced enclosures possibly to keep wild animals away. The Yurt is the round rigid tent with a boiler fire in the middle with chimney pipe protruding from its centre and the traditional home of the nomadic horsemen of the Steppes. Next to the Yurt may be a storage shed of some sort, enough firewood to see them through the winter, and possibly a few animals, a cow or goat for its milk, and a horse for transport. There are lots of wild horses roaming the hills in groups, and occasionally I can see a strange looking bird walking around, rather like a small ostrich with shorter legs. We are soon approaching Ulan Bator, a small city on the side of the hills with heavy industry belching out smoke which can be seen miles away, providing employment. Near the city the housing is a mixture of
MONGOLIAN STEPPES
Sunrise over the Steppes.modern high rise accommodation, small wooden shacks, and Yurts in little groups, some have an old car outside instead of a horse. The compact city centre appears to have some shopping streets that wouldn’t look out of place in the west.
We stop at Ulan Bator, its 7.30am and its very busy indeed, probably because there are only a few trains that stop at this station every week - again we have a blue sky and warm sunshine even this early in the day. I get out of the train for a chat with fellow passengers. There are many complete families seeing off relatives who are getting the train to go to Beijing, which for the first time will have its full quota of passengers with all berths filled. There is one family in particular that have the parents, or maybe grandparents, dressed in traditional Mongolian dress whilst the children are dressed as typically western teenagers. Mongolian dress is not just worn for special occasions, I saw a number of men dressed similar walking in the outskirts of the city as we came in. The Finns having departed, I am now in a carriage of Mongolians, mainly families with
MONGOLIAN STEPPES
Approaching Ulan Bator. very small children except for my new companion, a little man in light grey suit carrying a briefcase and small overnight bag. We nod and I say hello. As the train leaves the station, I see several women who have seen off their loved ones, take teaspoonfuls of a white powder or liquid from a small bottle and throw it at the train - not sure what it is but maybe its significance is to bring good luck to our train.
The train starts it ascent into the hills south of Ulan Bator, winding its way left and right around the hillsides to gain height on its single track. Every few miles there is a small station with no houses or Yurts in sight except for railway workers houses painted in the same colours as the station building, serving a passing loop. We have to stop several times at loops to let oncoming trains pass. The terrain is very open and you can see a train coming from many miles away. The track curves are amazing. I lose count of the number of 180 degree loops we encounter and even a 360 degree complete loop returning to its starting
MONGOLIAN STEPPES
Approaching Ulan Bator. point, albeit to a somewhat higher elevation. Large hares leap out of burrows in the ground and race away from the train when we pass them. There are 2 little Mongolian boys in our carriage probably aged about 3 or 4 who keep popping their heads out of their compartments to have a look at me, this man with the strange western face. All the Mongolians smile at nod their heads at you, and are very polite. Outside the land is undulating with short dry grass which after an hour turns to grass and sand which later turns to just sand. The land is getting flatter more like desert and we occasionally pass small groups of wild horses.
We stop at Choyr for 10 minutes and it is very hot indeed, the sun is baking down and theres not a cloud in the sky. Behind the station is the large statue of the first Mongolian cosmonaut. We leave Choyr and are now really in the thick of the Gobi Desert, deep sand as far as the eye can see. 3 large hawk type birds, maybe Eagles, circle a dead animal near the trackside - they have white heads, gold
MONGOLIAN STEPPES
Ulan Bator is in sight. feathers and huge wingspans with distinctive markings near their wing tips. There are more wild horses and the occasional small group of camels. Heading towards Saynshand it gets hotter and hotter on the train even though all the windows blinds are closed to keep out the heat. There is now a constant heat haze on the horizon, one minute you think you see some horses or men with camels, then they are gone - were they ever there ? At times there is a breeze and coupled with the train moving across sand covered track, a small sand storm is created and sand blows into the train - the Chinese attendants shout for us to temporarily close the windows. We see the occasional animal caucous or skeleton, a horse or a camel being circled by large birds. At one point I see 2 people having abandoned a nearby car walking off into the desert following the railway track but with absolutely nothing on the horizon, they have a long hot walk - I hope they make it.
We pull into Saynshand station, a very small place in the middle of the desert with no roads in or out apart
MONGOLIAN STEPPES
A Yurt near Ulan Bator. from some tyre tracks in the sand, being totally reliant on the railway. Here the single track has developed into 6 tracks with locos and trains stopping to be serviced and refuelled before continuing their journey. I would think that most of the population work for the railway because there is nothing else here. After our 20 minute stop we are back on the train heading south towards the Chinese border. We are now passing through very large sand dunes which eventually flatten out back to the desert. I still see the occasional lonely Yurt even in this hot desert with its stack of firewood and a couple of horses tethered to a post. In the next compartment is a giant of a Mongolian man who when he stands in the corridor, completely fills it apart from small gaps either side of his head. The small children are now running up and down the carriage shouting and screaming and becoming quite irritating. I gather that one of them belongs to the big man. I wont be making an issue of it. As we get nearer to Zamin Ude, the final station in Mongolia, we gradually drop down in height from
ULAN BATOR
A suburban Yurt in Ulan Bator. one large plateau to another, with grass starting to appear amongst the sand and the air getting cooler, so we re-open the windows. This has to be one the remotest parts of the planet. In the 500 miles from Ulan Bator to Zamin Ude apart from a couple of large settlements only there to serve the railway, we have seen absolutely no sign of civilisation apart from the odd nomadic family in a Yurt, By comparison, Siberia is remote from the rest of the world but people do live there in greater numbers.
At Zamin Ude, the passport and customs checks are carried out as we are leaving Mongolia. Arrival Forms are given out to be completed as Departure Forms. Customs declaration forms are given out. Both are written in English only and ask to be completed in English or Mongolian. So my Mongolian colleague in my compartment who doesn’t understand written English is struggling somewhat to complete the forms in order to leave his own country - very bazaar. So using sign language, some copying off my forms, many smiles and laughter, we get the job done. He then thanks me by smiling and shaking my hand and
ULAN BATOR
Ulan Bator station. gives me his business card. He is the Court Administrator at Ulan Bator City Courts. So if I am ever in a bit of trouble in Ulan Bator, I know who to look up as he now owes me a favour. In return I handed him one of my cards : 'Trans-Siberian Railway - UK to China - 7,650 miles' with my name, email and web address on the back. He studies it briefly, says nothing and puts it in his shirt pocket. Out on the platform is a pretty Mongolian female soldier in full combat gear, fully made-up wearing 6” spiked heeled fashionable boots - surely not government issue ? Next to our train is a long Russian timber train carrying thousands of logs, well actually they are complete tree trunks, about to continue its journey from Siberia south into China. We pull away from Zamin Ude and pass through 2 arches, the first to indicate we are leaving Mongolia and the second that we are entering China.
We continue for a couple of miles before entering Erlyan, our first station in China. Its late at night and as we pull into the station, piped music is coming
ULAN BATOR
Ulan Bator station. from the tannoy system, firstly a Chinese tune followed by 'O Solo Mio' played with Chinese instruments. After our passports have been checked, the carriage bogies are to be changed back from Russian wide guage to Standard guage. Our train is shunted backwards for about half a mile and into the carriage sheds, for the operation similar to that I saw in Belarus. On the way to these sheds, we see a building which surely has to be in the Guinness Book of Records due to is length, which was about 1 mile end to end, and that is no exaggeration. You could see through its windows that it is used to completely house a long freight train to change its bogies. Our bogie changing shed compared to the one in Belarus is like an operating theatre in that it is spotlessly clean with marble tiled floors. The crews changing the bogies are in smart clean uniforms wearing white gloves, and again music is coming from the tannoy system. Our bogies changed, we are about to leave the shed when a senior looking engineer spots something wrong with a bogie under our carriage. The young engineer responsible is shouted at
ULAN BATOR
Mongolian family on Ulan Bator station. and summoned and is severely chastised whilst he resolves the problem with the bogie. We are shunted back to Erlyan station to have a Chinese loco attached to continue our journey.
Yesterday in Irkutsk, a Finnish man joined the train at the same time as the other Finns, but not with their party. He is travelling alone. He walks through the train wearing a very camp looking Finnish Navy uniform with short jacket and small hat at a ridiculous angle on his head, talking in broken English to all the male passengers, never to the women. He smells of drink every minute of the day, and intentionally squeezes past me in the corridor very slowly - he could have waited till I had got out the way - he says that he is on the search for beer as he has run out and asks if I have seen any.
To the sound of the 'Theme from The Godfather' and then The Carpenters 'Sing a Song' from the station tannoy system, we head south for Beijing.
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