Aboard the Trans-Mongolian

We are now on our last train leg from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing. While I definitely enjoyed Mongolia more than Russia I am not starting to really look forward to heading home. I’m also excited about heading into a country where I may have some semblance of a chance with the language!

By now Gideon and I are old hands at this train traveling business. The time so far has flown. It’s a 30 hour journey which includes a 4 hour boarder crossing and one night of sleep. Supposedly the scenery tomorrow morning in Beijing will be sublime! We’ve spent some time sleeping/reading/blogging/studying the Mandarin phrasebook and then spent quite a while in the restaurant car which was much more reasonable that its Russian counterpart despite the attendant trying to charge us $US172 (more like $13 including takeaway drinks)!

After lunch we were pleasantly surprised to the make acquaintance with one of the two other people in our cabin. The other has spent most of the day next door with his friends. This one spent the morning sleeping. We later found out he had spent the night out with this mates before jumping straight onto the train. A student from Mongolia studying in China, he had a little English, but some decent Chinese which allowed for a conversation to be conducted mainly in Chinese. A truly international contingent! We played some knucklebones (cross fingers we get our new set back into Australia) and then cards. Hopefully between the two of us we will remember the rules of a new Mongolian card game that we have learnt.