Advertisement
Published: September 24th 2009
I'd had some difficulty procuring a ticket to China. Being a touristy destination of sorts; the travel agencies in Ulaan Baator know what's what, and buy-up train tickets in bulk for weeks in advance. The staff at UB guest house had found me a train ticket direct to Beijing, but after various agency-costs and donut-fees this was going to knock me back 140USD. So, having assessed the situation I opted to travel to Beijing the cheap way...
The first leg of my journey was an overnight train journey to the Mongolian boarder town of Zamiin Uud. A coupe ticket cost me 28000 Mongolian tugriks (around twelve quid). In the coupe were two Cornish chaps, billy & Tim, who'd been on the charity rally from the UK to Mongolia (which takes place on an annual basis). Quite surreal that three lads from the south-west should meet on a train in Mongolia! (There weren't many other westerners on this train as most travellers splash-out on a direct train to Beijing). The train ride was fine, though for unknown reasons I contracted a sneeze, runny nose and minor stomach upset. The air became thick with dust as we passed through the Gobi desert
that night, which probably didn't help too much.
In the morning we reached our destination and alighted. We were greeted by a swarm of jeep-taxi drivers offering to take us to the boarder entry. We accepted an offer for 50 yuan, which seemed to be the going rate. The drive to the boarder was like being in some kind of rally-come-treasure hunt. Our driver drove his jeep (clearly damaged by the daily ordeal of driving between the train station and boarder) fairly recklessly, and usually off-road. Periodically we would meet some kind of informal military check-point where our driver would either receive or hand in a laminated sheet with a number on it. The objective of this process was, and still is, something of a mystery to me, though it made an interesting spectacle. We passed through two boarder control buildings, the Mongolian exit and Chinese entrance. On the other side we took another taxi (this time for 5 yuan - about 40 pence) to the nearby Chinese town, and from there a coach for 100 yuan to Beijing.
Inner Mongolia (the province of China that we had arrived in) is very flat and barren. We passed small
settlements of vernacular mud-brick buildings, the occasional smog belching factory and vast swathes of nothingness. We also saw large wind farms- this must be an ideal place for them as there's basically nothing else here. For sure, there are no (or very few) locals to object to the planning applications (even if such processes exist here, which is doubtful). Later on, we passed a convoy of 70 or so Lorries carrying wind turbine blades, clearly for the construction of a new farm.
In Beijing we stayed at Leos Hostel, a decent place just a short walk from Tienanmen Sq and the Forbidden City. As Beijing is to be my home for a good few months, I didn't feel too pressured to hit all the 'sights'. So for the first day I just wandered around a bit. Beijing is a really huge city, with a population of over 14 million, the city sprawls for miles. It's an interesting place though, and I'm looking forward to discovering some interesting places off of the beaten track. On day two myself, Billy and Tim went to see the great wall. We took a local bus to 'Badaling' - the touristy bit that everyone
goes to see. It really is quite something to see this massive construction snaking through the mountainous terrain.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.286s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 65; dbt: 0.0708s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Doreen Bennett
non-member comment
well how are you today ??
Hello Tom Glad I have finally caught up with you . Great to see you are making good use of your time., am enjoying reading all about it. Perhaps if the two friends from Cornwall have been drawn to you by mutual ancestors it must have been by instinct or Karma or something. Will look forward to more again soon. Take care. Love and a big hug. Grannie xxx