Trans Mongolian Beginning

The Mongolian BBQ
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Day One on the Trans Mongolian journey started with duress given our 6.15am wake up call. It was fair to say that many of the people on our Vodkatrain tour weren't overly disappointed in leaving Beijing given the battering many of our lungs took in the period we were there.

After getting acquainted in our 4-person cabins it was soon noted that our days on the train were either going to be filled with snoozing, scoffing junk food or generally talking garbage. An early bonus was that we found that the beer was cold and the food in the dining carriage edible.

The Ulaan Baatar 'burbs
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The night disappeared and the Gobi desert arose in the dusk. At around 8pm we completed our formalities for leaving China and then watched for three and a half hours as each carriage of our train was jacked up and the bogeys (a.k.a. wheels) were removed and replaced with the Russian standard sizing. I was outside looking for Xzibit and camera crews for Pimp My Train but perhaps I was becoming delusional by this time.

Finally at around 1am, we were stamped into Mongolia by the local customs official. Now most customs officials are six foot men with a certain aura of 'don't mess with me' about them. However this particular official had at least all the men at her attention. I swear the lady had what could only be regarded as a belt on as a mini-skirt and as she asked everybody for their names there was a certain amount of drool spilt from the male contingent aboard.

Sunset over the Gobi
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In the morning we were still traversing the expansive Gobi desert and it was soon noted that half of it was in our cabin. Coughing and spluttering we surveyed the damage to see that entire pillows were covered in a centimetre of sand at places. Coming from China we were hoping our lung capacities and life expectancy would hopefully be on the rise again.

At lunchtime after a day and a half on the train we arrived in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia's capital. As we crawled through the dusty and rubble strewn suburbs the scenes looked more in tune with war-torn Baghdad with its Gers (traditional Mongolian tents) moulding in with brick shacks dispersed amongst motley fenced estates. The skyline also had this morbid depressing look that only Soviet design could command with its appealing sense of functional rather than eye pleasing architecture.

The Trans Mongolian
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Transferred to the hotel we again found another Soviet legacy which requires much attention. Through the summer months each of UB's districts gets the privilege of having no hot water. Instead of each building or house having their own hot water cylinders they have to tap into each separate districts communal supply. With temperatures only being survivable in summer then thats when the locals and in this case us were without hot water and with no real method of removing the Gobi from our person.

The vast Mongolian plains
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That evening we were taken to a traditional Mongolian ensemble performance featuring, wait for it, throat singing, horse headed fiddling, contortionists and exotic dance. Whilst it does sound like we went to a strip joint in fact it is what the Mongolians are famed for. By now well on the tourist circuit we were taken for Mongolian BBQ and then back to one of this cities many huge beer gardens. Given the Mongolians pension for a drink it wasn't surprising to see all pubs chokka block even on a Wednesday night.

Despite the cities grimy appearance most of the people seem rather happy with life and embracing its opportunities. At night however the underbelly of the city arises with a lot of street kids who crawl out from the hot water pipes under the streets to look for tourists to beg or pickpocket from. This unfortunately gave Ulaan Baatar a type of Jekyll and Hyde feeling that left you a tad uneasy.