Camels! Gers! Desert!
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Ulan Bator,
Mongolia
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Well Beijing was predictable after that - we went to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and it was nice to see. I'm over sightseeing at this stage - we must have a million photos (at least) already on this trip. The Forbidden City was packed with tourists and so we legged it after a couple of hours. We did the Secret Wall tour to see the wall and that was excellent - three hours hiking along an unrestored section of the wall that we had all to ourselves.
Our train to Ulan Bator left Beijing yesterday morning at 7.45 and we arrived here before 2pm. Finally we are on the trans-Mongolian Railway! We've been looking forward to this for years. However, the hostel we booked online is pretty disappointing, reminds me of some of the scummier student flats I used to visit now and again in college. But anyway, the idea is to get out of the city asap, which we are now trying to organise.
The train journey was great. Despite having caught a bad cold in Beijing (combination of air-con and smog I think) and sneezing and snotting my way through it - it was great. Amazing scenery, passing through Inner Mongolia before getting to the border where the wheels of the carriage were changed - there is a 10cm difference between the rail guages in Mongolia and China. It's a desolate landscape indeed, and at times very dusty. Sometimes you could see the dust in the corridor, and a film of it over everything in the carriage. We shared with a very nice couple, Neil from Perthshire in Scotland and Mongolian Meg who was full of excellent information and tales about Mongolia. So once again the journey flew by. The train wasn't quite as plush as the first Chinese one we had from the Vietnamese border, there was no air-con but we did get free lunch and dinner from the restaurant cart which was great. At the border we had the guards saluting us and rousing music playing as we pulled away from China.
The first Mongolians I saw were transfixed by their mobile phones at the station - some things are the same all over the world. This morning I woke to find the Gobi desert outside the window. So back to sleep I went. Then as we approached our destination we had great views of the steppes, very wild and with not a lot of vegetation, but greener than the very brown Gobi, with cowboys herding their flocks, wild horses and camels, birds of prey - it's great.
We're hoping to do maybe a five day tour out into the countryside to sample the nomadic lifestyle and get to know the culture a bit and get out of the city. Should be good... Will report on this later.
