Mongolia - China on Train
What a shock to the system, arriving in Beijing China was interesting, we went from a city of 1 million people to 15 million (Ulaanbaatar - Beijing) on the train in a matter of 30 hrs. It sounds like a long time on a train, but it wasn’t really that bad. We both enjoyed having the forced time off, no rushing around seeing things or packing & unpacking.
We were dropped off by Bataa (our Deaf taxi friend), who hung around with us until our train arrived around 7am - & departed at 7.15am. It was nice being able to have a chat to him before we left the country.
The train trip itself was interesting. You are asked to hand over your train tickets at the start & you don’t get them back til just before you get off, which sorta freaked us out, especially as we were the first ones that he collected tickets from. All of the train staff were Chinese, except for the staff in the dining car (at least on the Mongolian side of the trip). So we got to practice our Chinese straight away & make absolute idiots of ourselves. We were in Hard-Sleepers, which means that we were sharing our cabin area with 2 other people, a couple of girls (one from Sweden, the other German - both on holidays from Uni. The hard-sleeper was 1/2 the price (129860 Terper) of a soft-sleeper class & it was quite comfortable. We originally tried to get a soft-sleeper, but as we were on the first train to China after Naadam we were pretty lucky to get the Hard-Sleepers & honestly, it wasn’t that bad. There were toilets at either end of the carriage & hot water was available from an urn at the front of the carriage (our end, we were seats 7 & 8, 2nd compartment from the front).
The border crossing was interesting, we went into a sort of lock down at 6.30pm. We had been in the dining car, enjoying some of our last Mongolian food (we shared a dish) & had hoped to chill out a little longer there, when we were told, the dining car was closed. By the time we got back to our compartment in carriage #1, we couldn’t leave. We went through the Mongolian passport control by about 7pm & we didn’t finish on the Chinese side until after midnight.
The passport control is interesting, they go through the whole train & collect everyone’s passports, then they come back later & give them back stamped.
You knew that we had crossed into China straight away, there was loud classical music, huge buildings with neon light sign age (in Chinese) & tree’s. When we went through the Chinese immigration (on the train of course again) I was asked to take off my glasses & pose (friggin passport conditions for getting a photo say that you can’t smile or wear glasses, so I had to recreate that image again - I hate passport photos!!!) - seemed to take him ages to agree that it was me. We also had to state our name for him, which was a little different.
We played a game of cards - “Jackass” with Sarah & Sandra through most of the process, which was funny, we all had to swap around a few times, especially when Geoff was ordered to get his bag down & go through a random check of his bag - his bag is 70 - 90L, so he didn’t even get to the 1/2 way mark before the guy who asked told him, that was enough - it was just a test.
So what do you think that you would do if you were faced with 2 different widths of track, would you get all the passengers off the train & herd them onto another one OR would you change the wheels? Here they change the wheels - the train pulls up into a large covered shed, the train is lifted up (very smooth process) & then the wheels are pushed under (not so smooth). The train is jerked forwards & backwards as new carriages are pushed onto the end of the train with the new wheels, somehow though we all managed to get a bit of sleep (except for Geoff, who stayed awake. It was a rather rude awakening at midnight, when we were given back our passports by immigration. My name was called first & my passport thrust in my direction, & apparently I didn’t reach for it fast enough, as my name was called again, rather impatiently - oh well, I am sure that I wasn’t the first.
We didn’t really get a good view of the scenery until the morning & wow, it was really nice. Lots of trees (which I didn’t realise how much I missed them until we traveled through Mongolia) & heaps of crops of corn & other things. The scenery was a bit more mountainous too, which is what I expected to see. It was quite a pleasant train ride. We arrived in Beijing just after 2pm the next day.
Some tips for the train ride, would be;
* Bring some toilet paper, there was some at the start, but that quickly ran out (within 2 hours of departure), I had a large roll so I was set. Oh, the guys seem to pee all over the seat, so be aware of that late at night.
* Bring some tea bags (sugar & milk if you desire) so that you can make tea when you want on the train. You can ask for mugs to use on the train, so no need to bring you own, just make sure that you ask early enough to get some as I don’t know how many they have normally. They don’t give them to you automatically, you must ask. We found some potato flakes that we could use to make potato soup, with a bit of water added + Soy Milk + S&P. Bring some fruit & veg to snack on
*If you don’t bring food, you can get food & cold drinks in the dining car, it serves Mongolian food, whilst you are in Mongolia & Chinese food in China
* You can get your compartment locked by one of the staff if needed, either make friends with whomever you share with & get them to watch your stuff for you or get it locked, never leave everything without anyone there, it will be stolen if you do
* Sheets are free, you will receive a pillowcase + sheets at the start. There are narrow blankets that you can use if needed.
* If you catch the train all the way to Beijing, be prepared for them to start to pack up the sheets, tablecloth, seat covers, carpets etc several hours before you arrive, if you get off at a stop before then, you only have to give them back your sheets & pillowcase + mugs (if you borrowed them) before you get off.
* Before you get to any stops, USE the toilet, you can’t use them when you stop. This is especially worthwhile before you get to the border crossings - over 5hrs without being able to use the toilet is not always easy - they lock the toilets just before a stop.
* Bring entertainment, deck of cards, book, MP3 player etc. There is at least 1x 48V DC power point in each carriage hallway, which you can use to charge things if you need to, grab it quick though.
* Enjoy the scenery, it is amazing on both sides.
After the train
* Do NOT accept rides from people who say that they are Taxi drivers, wait in the line (which is large) or walk up the road to find a real taxi. Taxi’s start at 10Y
* Tuk-Tuks are generally a rip off, you will pay more for a Tuk-Tuk ride than a taxi & you will possible be dumped in the middle of no-where (like we were) & thus have to pay more than you would have if you had just gotten a taxi to start.