Irkuskst to Mongolia

Trip Start Jul 21, 2008
1
5
23
Trip End Ongoing


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Where I stayed
UB guest house
(Ulan Bator hotels)

Flag of Mongolia  ,
Friday, August 1, 2008

we caught the train  at 8.15pm local time, in our carridge we were joined by two very exhausted austrailians who had the same kind of taxi treatment as we had, but they had the opposite done to them the taxi driver kicked out all the russian tourists including the aussies, the aussies then started to play charades to try to explain that there train was leaving in 20mins and they were miles away from the station, so the taxi driver let tyeb back in to the taxi and all was well.
on this short train journey we only had one obstacle to climb and this was the russian and mongolian border, keep in mind how russia is run on using back handers and  a lot of so called over time, it only took 8hours!!! to cross the russian border compared to 1 1/2 hours on the mongolian side both sides have to do the exact same thing but it seems that the russians needed a little extra pocket money that day.
when we arrived in mongolia at 6am local time we were greated with big smiling faces and a very warm welcome from three people who run the guest house so straight away we were very happy, and it wasn`t just because we were paying him so we could stay in his hostel it seemed that everyone on the platform was very smiley, on the way to the guest house merlin shouts out of the taxi window "I LOOOOVE MONGOLIA" this became a habit of merls, especially when he pays for things like meals in fancy restaraunts ,i think we paid 8 pounds for both of us to eat out for lunch and dinner with beer, we have found somewhere that is about 1pound for both of us, we will try that after our desert trip.

we spent one day walking around the capita; temperatures were around 30 degrees. on the train we met 2 Italians and we met them agian in the hostel, and soon organised a 9 day trip to the gobi desert and surrounding area which cost us 200 pound for the both of us, this included food, driver, car "well kind of", fuel and somewhere to stay!
we leave for the Gobi on the 2nd of august.
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