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Published: April 19th 2007
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Last night as we walked home from the city centre we suggested to one another that it looked very easy for us to walk to the station tomorrow to catch our 8.05am train to Beijing. From a bridge over the railway tracks we plotted our route and estimated how long it would take us to get to the train station that we thought we could see.
Oh the best laid plans….7.25am we set off. Carrying all that we own we walked over well placed planks of wood over running streams, under hot water pipes and waited for a freight train to clear the tracks so we could cross them. After we had been walking for about 25 minutes the heart started pumping and not just from the bags on our backs. We then both broke out in a light jog, still not actually finding the train station - and knowing that these trains wait for no-one. Luckily we then found two parked taxis and went running over to get their attention, one guy was not bothered to break up the early morning guy talk with his buddy, but the buddy realised our urgency and started his engine. We crammed
ourselves into the taxi and raced down the road for another 5 minutes, almost driving up on to the platform, and we throw money and many very grateful thank you’s to the taxi driver. Then we run towards the train to realise that all the stairs have been lifted up, waving our tickets and pleading with the babushkas to let us on which they do with about a minute to spare, and we flop into our oven like compartment as the train is leaving the station on time.
Once we finally had cooled down and realising just how lucky we are we settle in for the 30 hour train ride. The carriage babushkas are very kind, bringing us tea and coffee, with a smile, as well as cleaning, which turns out to be obsessive cleaning, for example fighting with Ed over the one window that we manage to open to cool the carriage down. They insist it has to be closed as we go through the Gobi desert because the sand was coming in and they had cleaned the floor 800 times already! Anyway this did not distract from staring out into the flat arid nothingness of the Gobi
desert. We were unlucky with the sighting of camels but just pleased to be actually looking at the views go by rather than the walls of an Ulaan Baator hotel.
Our evening entertainment was crossing the border of Mongolia and China. It did not start to well as Gemma made a fool of herself when the evil looking Mongolian Passport control passport collector came and saluted to us, and instinctively Gemma saluted back which did not really go down too well. She then threw her passport at the collector due to the tension she was creating, did not crack a smile on her face. About 4 hours later we get our stamped passports back and move on to the Chinese border stop.
Here we are greeted by Christmas fairy lights and the theme from Titanic blaring out the speakers, mixed in with greetings of “Hooowww doooo yoooouu doooo, yoooouu willlll beeee onnnn yooouurr waaayyyy innnn thhhrreee hoouuurssss tiiimmmee” in a very English voice.
Our guide book at this point totally failed us, in fact for the whole last part of our journey, but that is tomorrow’s tale! We were all prepared to be leaving the train for
about 3 hours while the bogies had to be changed, the Chinese train system run on a different size track to Russia and Mongolia. Instead we are not told anything and realise that we are moving off, obviously to the garage to change the bogies (how many times can you say that word and get away with it!). So for the next 3 hours we are raised, stared at by mean looking guards, and have our bogies changed with much amusement and noise. How people sleep through this is beyond us. An amazing fact we found out was just how little is holding the carriages to the bogies, a long piece of metal that a female worker removed from under our compartment's carpet.
By about 1.00am and after a lot of banging and shunting of the carriages, which just got tiresome, we got on our way and we went to bed, very grateful that we were on the train.
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