Trans Mongolian meets Trans Siberian Express

---

Geo: 50.8476, 106.172

So we trundled across Inner Mongolia via Darkhan in the night, stopping in the morning in Sukhi Baator (where we could wash in icy water - pretty nice as it was so hot on the train) on Mongolian side and then crossed into Russia ans stopped at 'Haywku' but it's pronounced Naushky in english, this is where Russian soldiers get on train and search the cabins including opening the covers on the walls over the wires etc. Meanwhile a gang of Mongolian "peach" smugglers and a kid with scabies seemed to have no problem concealing their contraband, where I dunno. We saw them give the guards jeans and they snuck some flipflops (to sell later I presume) into our cabin so we were inadvertently accomplices!

And so we continued on over the Shuluyk mountains and Goose Lake while playing cards with our new Aussie friends (Chris & Jim) who are not much older than us but have 2 lovely teenage sons who were up for anything and hopefully we will see the all in Oz. Anyway I digress, we joined the Trans Siberian train line at Ulan Ude where we stopped for a leg stretch and to buy giant bottles of beer and look at girls in hot pants and short shorts.

Next morn 6am sunrise was pretty cool and things started to look more Russian and we arrived in Irkutsk at 7.30am, glad to be off yucky train.

---