Mongolia

We got the train at 5.30AM and headed for Mongolia. The carriage was a bit all over the shop and some Mongolian couple had taken it upon themselves to put their 2 kids in our bunks. What was worse was that they had their 4 berth carraige to themselves while they put the 2 kids in with a complete stranger. They'd also taken up all our storage space and there was a bit of a standoff between us to get him to take his stuff out.

This part of the journey should take around 26 hours or so to complete depending on the border crossings. The train heads in the direction of Ulan-Ude after Irkutsk and skirts around the southern shore of Lake Baikal. After Ulan-Ude the next major stop is Naushkig, which serves as the Russian Border point. This part took almost 6 hours, but the game of cat and mouse with the customs officials and the Mongolian traders passed the time. Basically the traders tried to hide stuff in every nook and cranny on the train and the customs officials were trying to them. To be honest they hardly gave us a second glance. The downside was that the toilets were closed for the duration which made life difficult to say the least.

The town of Sukhbataar an hour later served as the Mongolian crossing point. We made it into Ulan Baatar station at about 7.30am and were by someone from the hostel which was great. We were staying in the UB Guesthouse. The hostel was fine, clean and with a good atmosphere, however they had signs up for everything, for example they'd a sign on the laundry basket asking you to return it, can't imagine too many travellers pocketing a laundry basket!! However they did organise our train tickets to Beijing so they're mostly good.

We'd met a couple on the train who had the same time as we did in Mongolia so we decided to spend the day scoping out tours to the countryside.

Ulaan Baatar isn't that pleasing on the eye it has to be said. The Russians rebuilt it "Stalinist" style during their occupation and it leaves alot to be desired. The people themselves are really nice and smiley, and extremely friendly. It is getting on its feet however, if the amount of cranes dotting the skyline and amount of "western suits" walking about is anything to go by.

The main square in the main square of the city is named after one of their heroes, Sukhbaatar, or the Axe Hero. His story is that in 1919 he is thought to have fought off a Chinese Army of several thousand with just 800 soldiers. He then, with the aid of the Red Army, ran the Chinese out of Mongolia completely in 1921.

There is a statue of another interesting individual from Mongolian folklore, one Ghengis (Chenggis) Khan. It sits in front of the government buildings and is flanked on either side by his son Ogoodoa and grandson Kublai. Ghengis is a major hero and his name pops up everywhere, a smattering of buildings, the airport as well as the most popular vodka and beer (both of which is quite good I have to attest). The opinion of him as a blood thirsty tyrant, doesn't hold sway anymore. He is now revered as more of a diplomat than a warlord. The Mongolian empire did at one stage control a stretch of land from Beijing to Poland, no mean feat for the 12th and 13th century.

After this we headed to the Gandantegchinlen Khiid Monastery in the centre of UB. This is famous for the 26.5 m statue of Janraisig. This statue is actually a replacement for the original one that was destroyed by the Russians in the 1930's. Before the occupation there were almost 800 monasteries in Mongolia, afterwards there were only 3 left standing. The leaflet in the monastery didn't pull any punches when it said "monks were killed, jailed, or foced to join the army or laity. The 5 temples of Gandan Monastry were destroyed. What temples remained were used to house Russian officials or were used as stables."In the early 1990's, after the Democratic Revolution, it was decided to restore the Gandan Monastery and work is still ongoing.

Later that evening we met Pippa and Greg from the train and we decided to book a tour with the Golden Gobi hostel nearby. Basically they offered us a great 8 day tour with English guides, drivers and food for about 250 Euro. We had a group of 8 and we were meeting the next morning at 7.30.

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