The saga of the Chinese-Mongolian border crossing continues. Now in Mongolia, we proceeded a few kilometres to the Zamyn-Üüd station where the passport rigmarole began afresh. Because there were people waiting at the station to board, we were first switched off to a siding where the passport control offices were situated, arriving there at 1:10am. The border control people entered the train and collected our passports and verified our immigration forms. Then the train was backed up and switched back onto the main line, arriving at the station at 2:10am, where the locals got on board. Border control came through to return our passports at 2:30, and we finally got under way at 2:50pm. This whole border process was expected, but its complexity was not!!
Finally, some sleep!
7:30am and we woke to a sunny vista of wide golden grassy steppes, totally different to anything we had had till now. The houses are sparsely distributed, and look quite sturdy and comfortable, whitewashed or with decorative designs in the brickwork — even matching rock gardens.
The Mongolians are basically a herding culture, and we have already seen evidence of this, with herds of horses, cattle, goats and sheep, often with a herdsman in attendance, not far from the railway.
News flash! At 8:20 we noticed traffic congestion on the road over on the horizon — 2 TRUCKS!!!
After a lot more journeying on the train, we finally got in to Ulaanbaatar about 20 minutes late at 3:00pm. We were met at the station by a refreshing young miss called Uni (actually Урангоо, Urangoo, but she's chosen a simplification easier for incoming travellers to say). She and her driver Ganbold took us round to our hotel, the Bayangol Hotel, where we were to live in the lap of luxury for the next few days.
It turns out that Uni and Ganbold were to be our constant companions for the next couple of days, as they were the ones who would be taking us out to Kharkhorin tomorrow and Hustei National Park the next day — we were destined to get to know them both a lot better and develop quite a friendship in the coming days.
We got to our hotel, the Bayangol Hotel, and found that we had a bit of time to go exploring. We decided to walk our onto Chinggis Avenue, just outside the hotel, and to wander up to Sukhbataar Square, the virtual centre of the city. Om the way, we ran in to a group of English people, who informed us that they were participating in the Peking to Paris Car Rally, running in June and July. This is a rally for cars manufactured before 1976, and follows the route of the 1907 Peking to Paris Car Race. 'The Great Race' has nothing on this! As we were approaching the square, we happened by the Blue Sky Hotel, and all the participants were parked in the car park. These people are crazy, but hats off to them. The oldest car in the rally dates from 1904!
We then got to the square, a magnificent place in the heart of the city, dominated by a large statue of Chinggis Khan. There was some excitement going on, and we found that we had stumbled on the FIBA 3x3 Under 18 World Cup Basketball Championships. (When we got back to the hotel we found live coverage on the TV!)
We went up to our room. Warren spent a bit of time catching up part of the the lost time on the blog, due to having been behind the 'Great Firewall of China' for the last week! Then to bed, to be ready for an early start in the morning, but not before looking our on one of the best views we have had from a hotel room!
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