Train 11 - UlaanBaatar to Beijing

  UlaanBaatar-Beijing, China
Saturday, July 1, 2006

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After a long last night in UB with Herve, Angelique, Liv, and Andy, I managed to have 2h of sleep and to get up feeling sick. Had a shower, finished packing, kissed goodbye, and left to the train station.

I found myself in a compartment with a Mongolian lady speaking perfect english. I swapped seats with her husband, because he was booked in another compartment. The Mongolians in the second compartment spoke englich too, and were just as friendly.

Mongolians sleep in the morning, and that's just what I need. I slept from 9 to noon, missing the station of Choir and its statue of the first Mongolian cosmonaut (whose wife was in my first compartment, by the way). When I woke up we were in the Gobi, under a terrible heat.
In Sainschan, capital city of te Dornogov Aimag, I met Herve and we spent some time chatting in the restaurant wagon. The hangover gradually replaced the fatigue, and I realised I had caught a cold again.

We travelled past vast desert land, made up of rocks and sand. On the horizons some hardened dunes, sometimes hosting an Ovoo (pile of rocks dedicated to the spirit of the summit) on 20 meters high dunes. In some places a little bit of grass, and camels counting the wagons.


In the evening we passed the borders, in an unbearable heat. The night that followed was also all sweaty and humid.

At the Chinese border, the train bogeys were changed, as the width of te railways are not the same in Russia and Mongolia as in China. To that end te train was lifted, the operations being conducted under horn and whistle signals.

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Saturday 1st July: China. We are in the mountains, terraces going up from the valley we are traveling in. Abundant vegetation; Heat and humidity. The landscape is much more populated too. Everywhere it is made of cultures, houses, small pagodas. As we approach cities, every piece of land is occupied, be it to grow vegetables or simply to have a lovely flower garden. In the distance, the peaks of the mountains and the end of the valleys are lost into the fog.


Suddenly, my first sight of the Great Wall. We cross or follow parts of it several times. It sticks to steep mountain faces, at places in a derelict state, at others bustling with visitors.


I spent quite some time in my original compartment, speaking with Jargal, who is working for UN Development Programme. The cosmonaut's wife in the same compartment is on an official trip for an exchange between China's and Mongolia's state libraries.

I gave my LP Mongolia guidebook to the young girl in my compartment, as I could see she was really enjoying reading it.


We pulled into Pekin main station in the afternoon.

Transiberian part over, time to have a glimpse at Asia...


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