We went to Beijing Railway station (by subway line 2) to catch the Trans Mongolian Express to Ulaanbaatar. While we were waiting for the train, the train officials rounded up some people and made them weigh their luggage. Oddly, only Chinese people were ordered to weigh in.
When we got on the train, we discovered that the beds had no sheets. They came by later and gave us sheets and took our tickets. We had a standard class berth with 4 beds. But since there wasn’t a 4th person in our berth, we put all our stuff on the extra bed.
In our exploration of the train, we saw that the first class berths had 2 beds and a bathroom. However, there was no shower. The bathroom is shared by 2 compartments. I’m not sure if they get refilled with TP.
There was also an electrical outlet in the aisle of the train for the standard class berths. First class has an outlet in the compartment. I put my mp3 player to charge in the walkway area and sat near the door of the compartment to keep an eye on it. (The outlet is the standard Asian/European type.)
If you are going to take the Trans Mongolian Express I would recommend bringing:
A few booksan mp3 player with lots of memory
Lots of snacks. There are dinning cars, but they aren’t always open.
Playing cards
Toilet paper. There was TP on the train, but sometimes they ran out.
Tea, cup noodles, and hot chocolate mix. There is a hot water dispenser in every car.
If you go in the summer… a fan. You’ll see…
* Information on how to get tickets from within Beijing
Food stop: Datong
At Datong the train stopped to pick up more passengers. This gave us an opportunity to buy food.* We bought some cup noodles and fruit. They were also selling some fresh baked (maybe fried) bread, but some Chinese guys ran off the train push their way to the cart and bought ALL of them from all the vendors. So, very few non-Chinese people were quick enough to get any of the bread.
(If you travel on any train in Asia make sure you bring your own TP, or buy some at one of the stops. At this stop there were only two rolls but luckily we were able to buy one of them. It wasn’t not the softest TP in the world, but it’s better than nothing.
On some cars there is a bathroom that is hidden behind an open door at one of the ends of the car. Most people missed it and therefore the TP there lasted longer. It also stayed clean too.
* There’s one more stop to buy food before getting to the boarder.
Changing the wheels: Erilan
We stopped at the border between China and Mongolia for passport control. As soon as we pulled into the station the officials came by every compartment to check under the beds and take our passports. Everything was very serious and they all seems like they hated their jobs, their lives, and everyone on the train. I could almost imagine all of them going home to beat their wives or husbands, scream at their kids, and kick their dogs.
We were in Erlian for about 8 hours. For the first 2 hours we just sat on the train as the train kept moving back and forth. Later we found out that they were adding and removing cars to the train. Every country has its own dining car. After two hours of rocking back and forth, we were told that we could get off the train and wonder around town but we couldn’t get back on the train until it was time to go.
I wanted to get off the train, but mom wanted to take all her important stuff* with her. So while she unpacked and repacked her stuff the train conductors open and then closed the doors. So we were stuck on the train.
The train pulled into the “garage” and the next 4 hours were spent lifting the train up and pulling the wheels out. They slid smaller or maybe bigger… I don’t remember now wheels under the train. During these 4 hours there was no electricity so no fan.
The Trans Mongolian trains have no a/c. All you get is a tiny blue wall fan. This would have been a great time for me to pull out my own personal fan, but I didn’t bring one.
The last 2 hours where spent back at the station where everyone who left got back on board and we waited for them the give us back our passports. Apparently they got to wonder around the town with no passport. They got to buy stuff and use the bathroom.
Because the train was in the station, those poor saps like us who stayed on the train could not use the bathroom for the whole 8 hours we were at Erlian.
When we pass the actual China/ Mongolian border there was a little Chinese soldier standing guard with his guns making sure the Mongolians don’t sneak into China. There were no Mongolian soldiers on the other side. I don’t think the Mongolians spend too much time worrying about the Chinese. Maybe they’re too busy sneaking into China.
Finally in Mongolia: Zamynuud
At the Chinese border everyone had official looking uniforms. Even the janitor had a couple stripes on his sleeve. But in Mongolia, only the lady who took our passports wore a uniform.
The mood in Mongolia seems a lot lighter than in China. The officials were laughing and making jokes before they got on the train. Once on the train they acted quite serious, almost like they were pretending to be Chinese border officials. Once they got off the train they continued with their merriment.
I tried to stay awake as long as I could to see if I could spot any interesting things moving about in the desert, but there was nothing to see. So I fell asleep.
Call me Cosmos: Choyr
One of our rest stops was in the town of Choyr. There wasn’t much to buy. In fact there was only a 12 year old boy and his friend selling uncold water. Of course we bought 2 bottles.
On this trip I didn’t drink as much water as I should have. But drinking enough water means peeing a lot… peeing in public bathrooms… dirty public bathrooms!
Here we met the statue of Cosmos, the first and only astronaut of Mongolia. I know what you’re thinking… “How was lucky that he was born a ‘Cosmos’”.
Some time ago the Russians decide to Russianize Mongolia. The first thing that they noticed was that most Mongolians didn’t have last names. So they made it mandatory for everyone to get a last name. Most people looked at their family tree to find one. It turns out that a lot of people are related to Ghengis Khan. Other people either couldn’t find a suitable ancestor, or just wanted to be creative and made up their own last name.
This was the last stop before the final stop at Ulanbator.
* The Important Stuff
When backpacking there are some items that you must never leave home without.
1. A photo copy (colored if possible) of every important document. passorts picture pages, visa pages, prescriptions or medication labels, anything that you cannot live without and might be hard to describe in another language like an inhaler — take a picture of it and bring it… You should also keep a scanned or e-version of everything online. E-mail them to yourself.
2. Toilet paper/ wipes and hand sanitizer. Just assume that no where has toilet paper and that you will need to wipe down everything you touch. You don’t need to bring tons of TP and wipes since you can buy they at general stores on your trip, just bring enough to get you through a day or two.
3. A small memory stick. You never know they this might come in handy. Since I travel a lot and get jobs around the world I keep a copy of my resume on my tiny memory stick. (I actually got my job in Korea while on this trip. I did my interview while waiting at a train station in Paris.) Plus your camera might run out of memory…
4. Travel Insurance. I use worldnomads but there are plenty out there. Shop around and find the best price for you. Also scan the receipts for everything you are taking that can be claimed with your insurance. That way you can file while still on your trip. You can upload document to “mediafire” that way everything you need for your trip is in one place. Mediafire is free and your files are saved as long as you log in at least once a month. Make sure you set you file as private unless you want to share.
5. Drugs. Bring cold, diarrhea, constipation, pain, allergy, and whatever you need medicine. You can buy these drugs in every country you visit, but when you’re sick and in a country where you don’t speak the language you might not be in the mood to find a pharmacy and search through new brands of drugs written Russian.
6. Get your shots. This might seem like going overboard, but isn’t better to be safe now? Then you can eat what ever mystery soup is given to you without worrying about contracting hepatitis B.
7. an outlet plug adapter
