Zamyn Uud

你好中國 (Hello China)

Second border crossing, the Gobi Desert and Buggy changes.

14/09/2017: Our last train - 6,304-7,622km

We are on our very last train of our train adventure, which started at 5am this morning as the train departed Ulaanbaatar at 6.30am. The train is full of tourists, the train from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing only runs twice a week after the summer months and so everyone who is travelling along this route ends up on the same train. We have some Dutch tourists that we bumped into a few times in Mongolia and a bunch of French Pensioners.
Our new friends from the Ger Camp, Holly and Ayra, came to say hi and we went on an explore to the dining cart at one point. Annoyingly, you can only order a set menu on the Chinese Dining cart so none of us got anything.

Everything you read about not being able to access a bathroom for hours at the border crossings is true of the Mongolia/China border so we haven’t drunk anything except for the smallest sips of water since last night.
The new train is a Chinese train and super modern, we no longer have opening windows because we have air conditioning. This is great when we are moving but when we stop it gets extremely hot on the train as we are passing through the Gobi Desert and the air con stops when the train does. But at one of the stops I made friends with the loveliest dog, I am looking forward to being home with mine now.

So here is how the border crossing goes on the China/Mongolia border.

  1. After half a day of travel across the Gobi Desert we arrive at the Mongolian border. The bathrooms have been closed for about half an hour at this point, keep an eye on the time as the train attendants will not warn you ahead of the bathrooms closing.
  2. The Mongolian customs officers come round and do passport control at the Mongolia border, this takes about an hour or so. They will take your passport away from you during this stage; do not get off the train without your passport. Some people in another tour did and they were then held on the platform until their passports were returned, it is much more comfortable to be on the train and also less stressful. The Mongolian border officers have been much more relaxed than the Russians for the most part, and they do not have big scary dogs.
  3. Our passports were returned to us and we travelled the half an hour to the Chinese border (not long enough for them to open the toilets). However, they did turn the aircon back on so we got a brief respite from the heat.
  4. Once at the Chinese Border the Chinese customs officers come around and collect your passports, you must be in your own cabin for this bit. They will once again take your passports away and they will also come round several times to check you against your passport.
  5. You then stay on the train as you go to a warehouse where the buggies are changed for the new track width of China, a very interesting experience to watch. The carriages are separated out, lifted up in the air as the old buggies are taken out from underneath and the new ones are rolled in.
  6. They then take you back to the border where they give you back your passport, and about 5 or so hours after the process began, you are allowed off the train and access to a bathroom.

We were prepared for the whole process and hadn’t drunk anything since the night before but many were not (there were a lot of people throwing suspiciously coloured drinking bottles in the bin). However, by this point it was 2am and we were seriously dehydrated, tired, hot, and had splitting headaches. We jumped off the train the minute we were allowed and sculling back water like our lives depended on it. Be warned that they play pipe music continuously at the Chinese border, this just about pushed me over the edge but eventually the headache eased, the temperature dropped and we all went to sleep at about 2am. We woke up to the train finally moving through the beautiful country side of Northern China.

So after a total of 8272km, 7 days, 7 nights, and two border crossings on our big train adventure, we have survived (just). I will be happy not to see a train for a while now though; I am pleased we are flying home to New Zealand.