Arrived 3/06/19
The Train from Ulaan Baatar
A new train and new companions. On the 7.30 am from Ulaan Baatar I was joined by Randy, an early retiree from Florida who travels half the year, and Orla, a free spirited young Irish woman en route to an English teaching assignment in Vietnam; she had been on the train non-stop from Moscow. We spent the entire journey talking about everything from Brexit to desalination plants. At lunchtime we headed for the restaurant car, where I had an appointment with Jean Pierre, who I had shared a compartment with on my last train and also bumped into twice on my Mongolia tour.
As the day progressed the already dry land got progressively dryer until the grass was just thin yellow patches: we were in the Gobi desert. Remarkably, there were still some grazing animals somehow managing to survive on the meagre food supply.
At 9.00 pm we reached the Chinese border. First there were checks on the Mongolian side, then, on the Chinese side, we had to take all our belongings off the train to go through a scanner. We then sat in a waiting room for three hours while the bogies on the train were adjusted or replaced to fit the wider Chinese gauge tracks. At midnight we were allowed back on the train but it did not leave until 2.00 am, by which time even the rock hard bunk did not prevent me sleeping.
In the morning we were out of the Gobi and for the first time since Moscow there were continuous towns, villages and intensively cultivated land, which, while still looking very dry, was planted with all manner of crops and orchards. There was also a semi-continuous band of rubbish fly-tipped alongside the track and neighbouring roads. More impressively, China’s recent development was evident in the new high speed rail lines that criss-crossed our path, the entire lines apparently built on pillars above the ground.
The journey from Moscow had saved the best for last: an hour and a half before Beijing saw us traverse stunningly beautiful hills and gorges, the train diving in and out of tunnels – usually diving in just as I had the perfect photo lined up.
At last, 4,735 miles from Moscow, I arrived in Beijing. The first thing I had to do was get some cash; I had none in any currency. I thought it would be easy to find an ATM at an international railway station. I was wrong. Eventually I did find one but it would not give me any money; I found another: same result. I got directions for a third but they led into a dead end. Finally I asked at a police station. After a discussion, the boss ordered one of his men to take me to an ATM. We walked for ten minutes, ignoring a Bank of Beijing on the way, and finally entered an anonymous looking office block where, on the fourth floor, was a branch of the Bank of China whose ATM actually coughed up some cash for me! Thank you Beijing police!
Armed with cash, and quite hot and sweaty after carrying my backpack around for an hour in 36 C heat, I was able to get a subway train to my hotel and collapse on the bed, which, although having an inviting mattress 8 inches deep, was almost as hard as the train bunk. Ah well, that’s the joy of travel.
Rob's Roads 