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Published: August 7th 2009
Well it had arrived the final few hours of being in Russia, or so we thought.
It was the day of our journey to Mongolia. It was an early start after a late night and a very hot night. So at 8am we (us and the French dudes) headed off into the dust to catch the number 4 bus into town. With back packs on our laps and the driver insisting we can fit one more person in at each stop we finally made it to the bus station of Ulan Ude. The French guys wonderfully sorted out a bus to the boarder which took us 3 hours. Thinking we had paid to cross the border we were slightly confused when the driver started getting our bags off the bus when we got there. It turned out we had to get another mini bus to take us through the boarder as you can't walk across it.
Noticing it was going to take sometime for them to let us through we all got off the minibus for some fresh air only to find a bunch of locals piling into the bus. Suddenly 11 became 17 and after a heated debate
we finally came to the conclusion that they would not budge so we all crammed in and waited in the scorching heat for our turn. After 7 hours in this squashed position we were finally let though and after many Russian checks, a mad woman throwing a massive cockroach into our bus and T being scrutinised at passport control we finally made it into Mongolia!!!!!
Thinking we had once again paid to go to one place (Sukhbaater) we were surprised to find out that the woman was only going to take us to the nearest village so after paying abit more she took us where we wanted. Once there the French dudes once again wonderfully sorted out a mini bus for us and 6 ungrateful Spanish people and we eventually were on our way to Ulaanbaatar. Well, that’s what we thought, because half way there the bus stopped and we had to unload our stuff and get onto another bus with even less seats.
So after 17 hours after leaving Ulan Ude we FINALLY made it to Ulaanbaatar at 1:30am and our home for the next few nights, UB guesthouse for $18 a night for a double room.
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Matty
non-member comment
How?
Hi im planning on driving from the uk to australia and just wanted to try and get some info and on the technical bits i.e visa's. Was it hard to get visa's into the likes of russia and mongolia, what are the roads like as well, would i need a 4x4? Thanks Matt