Mongolian train madness

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So, after a rather pleasant night in Irkutsk we were up early to cath the 6.00am train to Ulanbaatar. Once on the train we realised we were sharing with one of the other guys on our trip Adrian. We opened our cabin door to see probably the dirtiest cabin you have every seen, a far cry from our train from Russia, and it seemed every carriage was the same. It was also full of boxes of goods the Mongolian traders were taking/smuggling from Russia into Mongolia. Anyway we cleaned the cabin the best we could after shifting all the boxes into yet another cabin crammed with boxes, and we all agreed that sleeping in clothes and ontop of the semi clean sheets was the way forward. After all the train journey was only 24hrs to Mongolia. We were just settling in ready for our estimted 5 hr border crossing into Mongolia praising the fact that there was only the 3 of us in the cabin when at a stop near the border a load more traders got on, we hoped our spare bed was still spare until a guy pops his head around our door waving his ticket at us, we looked at his ticket and it seemed he was our missing cabin buddy. So in he bowles with about 6 big boxes and if that wasn't enough it seemed that he had booked his whole family on the 1 ticket which involved his wife, 3 kids, brother and his 2 kids. It was bonkers!!! He managed to settle in by putting all his boxes on his top bunk the sitting on the bottom bunk (my bed) and started making dinner for his family which was basically pot noodles, but 6 sittings one at a time was a bit grateing. We decided enough was enough so Adrian got out his Mongolian phrase book and we started to try and converse with them which was realy funny. We spend the next three hours laughing and joking with the nicest people you will ever meet. the kids spoke a little English, far more mongolian than we will ever speak. They were all facinated by our OK magasine in which the only 2 people the recognised were David and Victoria Beckham. We reached the border and the laughing and joking subsided as our new cabin buddy started to unload all the fags and booze he was smuggling into bags topped with his kids sweets and toys. We decided this was enough smuggling to feed his kids for a few months so we turned a blind eye, in fact Adrian was encouraged to act like one of the kids dad when the officials came on which was realy funny. The guards were having none of that and told the kid to get to the next cabin. Our cabin like all the others was searched (ish) and nothing was found. So job done and onto the Mongolian border crossing where sadly/thankfully our cabin buddy and all his boxes and kids got off so we could get some shuteye before our arrival into Mongolia. After a good nights sleep we were up early to see that the view had changed dramatically. It was some of the most beautiful scenery surely on the whole planet. We were keen to get off the train and get to our promised first stop...........A SHOWER!!!!

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Comments

[simon and ali]

what the...!
sounds and looks great........ and dirty, just letting you know that your room is stocked with 19 boxes of alchohol which Ali wants me to move, but I said who the hell wouldn't want to stay in a room full grog! take care have fun. Lol Simon