China-Mongolia
After 12 hours on the Chinese train from Beijing we finally arrive to Elian, at the border with Mongolia. We had been forewarned that here we must all alight, as the carriages have to change shoes – i.e. the width of the tracks is different between the two countries and therefore the wheels have to be changed for the remainder of the trip. Each carriage has to be lifted and new wheels have to be secured for the remaining of the trip. This may be done with cranes and the like, but tourists are not allowed to see this procedure. No matter how mechanized, it is still a very slow process. In the meantime we tourists can wonder around the station, which of course is closed by now or almost, the town behind also is practically closed for the night so the only alternative is the local little shop in the station where we can buy from shoes to brandy, veggies, snacks and whatever we may fancy. We are still in China and will be here for a while but nobody is really sure for how long and to make matters worse, we are all without passports, gone for the traditional exit stamp, so the alternative of escaping to the outer world of the station is rather limited.
Shop, sleep if you can, smoke while you can as the outer court will soon be closed and you cannot smoke inside and in general wonder what is going on and why whatever is going on is taking so long. FIVE hours later the train is back, new wheels, but we do not notice them, whistles blowing full blast and we all hurry on board, fearful of being left here any longer than necessary. By now it is one in the morning, we are tired and want to go to sleep but after just a few minutes we arrive in Mongolia where passport control, border control and customs control start again. After another hour we have been cleared and can go to sleep. We wake up and the great surprise is the Mongolian dining car, richly decorated with different Mongolian motifs, good service albeit expensive, and finally a break in the routine. In due time, around one o’clock in the afternoon we finally arrive to Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia and one of the two border crossings, if long, was uneventful.
Mongolia-Russian Federation
To think that the China – Mongolia border crossing had been long is really not knowing what was coming to us. After boarding the train and leaving Ulaanbataar at 9 pm, we arrive at the Mongolia – Russian Federation border before 6 am, and then again get up bright and shiny and present arms, sorry, present passport (hide the arms) and wait until the Mongolian officials have done all the verifications to confirm that we are not hiding illegal aliens that might want to escape to Russia, that we do not have smuggled goods and that we are really bona fide tourists in this trans-mongolian adventure. Once the Mongolian authorities are convinced we can be let out, we effectively get out of the train and suddenly notice that only one carriage is at the station, ours, no engine in front or behind, no other carriages, we are left all alone in the Mongolian side of the border, you have your passport but no information, no real timeframe to consider. The wait here lasts only SEVEN hours, until finally a locomotive comes, hooks with our lonely wagon and pulls it during one hour until we arrive to the Russian side of the border and there again, the Russian border patrol checks passports, wagons looking for illegal aliens or aliens in short, smuggled goods and whatever they may imagine to find in the carriage and finally our passports are returned and we are allowed out of the train and visit the town with its little market, being Sunday does not help in the life of the border town, but… at least we buy bread, cheese, cold cuts and water, there to have our lunch express that we rush to eat by the lonely and solitary train, and also use the facilities, which have to be paid in rubbles that we do not have, so you have to take out money from the one and only ATM that takes foreign credit cards. The wait in the Russian side is only of three hours and finally the train coming from Vladivostok arrives, we are hooked and ready to continue into unchartered or chartered but unknown Russian territory. This second and last border crossing only lasted ELEVEN hours.
Mongolian – Russian Federation border
It is good that this adventure does not require any further border crossings; otherwise the whole trip, albeit of over seven thousand kilometres, would take half a year!
Mementos of my life 