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Published: October 4th 2008
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Day 33 - Friday 3rd October - Got up early for breakfast. Our transfer was at 7.20am and we only had 20mins to eat so i opted for non melted cheese on toast. Our train for Beijing departed at 8.05am. It was a much better journey this time as all the people we had met were in our carriage so we felt like we owned the place. There was this one guy there though who juggled a lot and was always practicing 'Mongolia throat singing'. Best way to describe it was like the sound of a gnat by your ear, or occasionally it went a bit Rolf Harris. The border crossing took ages as not only did they have to check all the passports as always but they also had to change the wheels on the train. This involved them lifting our carriage whilst we were in it. To pass time we played card games and then name games. The losers forfeit was to attempt their own Mongolian throat singing for a minimum of 10 seconds. Nance is quite the expert now.
Day 34 - Saturday 4th October - We arrived in Beijing early afternoon and after saying our goodbyes to all the people we've met headed off back on our own again. Damn being on our own. It's tricky. Firstly i can't seem to withdraw any cash as the retards at HSBC cut me off. Then we managed to get a cab after the longest queue ever but the driver didn't speak or read any english. We'd jotted down the name of our hostel in the hope he'd recognise it. Still, he decided to take on the challenge and give us a lift anyway. After a few minutes he resorted to flagging down young looking Chinese people in the street in the hope they spoke english. There was little success but then we remembered Paul and Brad who we'd met on the trans siberia rail a few days before. We called them up and they agreed to meet us at the station. We couldn't get the cab driver to understand that we wanted to go back there but eventually he dropped us at a nearby hotel and we walked from there. He didn't charge us either so in a way it was just a free tour of Beijing. We met the guys and they took us to the hostel they are staying at. It's not too bad a place and is only 8 quid a night. We've booked in for 3 nights so we can sort out some sort of plan for how the hell we are going to get through China. We were all pretty shattered from the journey so decided to just relax as by now it was early evening anyway. I hadn't eaten since my delicious 'fake pringles in stale bread' sandwich the night before so we went for a chinese. It's different than the Chinese back home. I got to use chopsticks for the first time as i somehow ordered meat with pumpkin. It was pretty good though. Tomorrow we plan on visiting the Forbidden city and attempting again to withdraw some money.
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