Bangkok to Penang

Vientiane to Bangkok Because the train saw full we booked a VIP bus. This is air-conditioned, reclining seats (with toilet on board) and takes the same time (about 12 hours). We ahd arranged to be picked up from our hotel and were somewhat surprised when our transport arrived.


















Thankfully this was only a transit to the bus station. There, a somewhat dilapidated coach takes you to the border. After the normal formalties and the reassuring sound of rubber stamps on passports, we transferred to the VIP bus. The Thailand road was excellent and you clearly are in a more prosperous country from the moment you leave the border. We arrived an hour early.

Bangkok

If Beijing was vibrant, and Vientiane was calm then Bangkok was hustle.

There is also bustle, but it felt as if there was more pressure in Bangkok. Pressure to take a tuk-tuk or taxi, pressure to buy, pressure to have a massage. The poorer environs are quite grubby and coupled with the pressure it felt a bit seamy. (no doubt we will have floods of emails saying we got it wrong and missed the good bits, but this is our opinion).

A typical food vendor - this type of food is very cheap and usually excellent.

We have seen many 'strange' examples of English. This was just one ...

We did like the Grand Palace – very very sparkly - and the Emerald Buddha.

We did like the river boats – surely the best bargain in Bangkok. For about 25 pence you can have a trip on a boat that goes so fast the waves splash you. It is a good way to view Bangkok without effort. The breeze is a nice change from the humid heat (or air-conditioning). It is interesting how the passengers all go for one side of the boat until you realise that all the empty sets are on the sunny side.

We saw people bathing in the river (the Chao_Praya) but it looked about as mucky as the Thames at Wapping. We did like the enormous number of “wats” (temples) and reclining Buddhas, but became overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

What did impress us was the way people actively used the shrines in the streets, or shopping malls. These are not in extravagant tourist locations, simply somewhere holy right on the street. You often saw people leaving offerings of fruit, or flowers and there were lots of places on the side streets where women made marigold garlands to place on the alters.

The Thais are also enormously respectful of their king. Each public building has a huge photo of him or the queen smiling beatifically. Some of the grand boulevards or roundabouts.

But in the side streets we saw lots of sweat shops with women working on sewing machines making up things to sell in the nearby shops.

Now if you like shopping Bangkok would be heaven on earth; we have never seen so many retail opportunities of all shapes and sizes. We saw acres of shoes in the Siam Centre, Jeff did not believe that there were enough women on earth to wear all the shoes we saw. (He IS pretty innocent).

In one mall we were swept along by a group of determined women, who were buying wholesale to take back and resell at their beach stalls or small out of town shops.

All in all, not our favourite place. But we did make it to the train station about 2 hours before the train was due, and watched the orderly waiting of Thai families preparing for a journey under the watchful gaze of their king.

The journey to Butterworth was second class but it was a delight. The carriage was open plan with double seats that converted to bunks at night, (and were made up for you by the carriage steward).

The toilets were a challenge – it takes some skill for a female to use a squat toilet on a moving train.

In the berth opposite us was Juliet; she is also on her way overland to Australia. She was following a similar route to us, having done Cambodia, not Laos; but it was good to compare notes. She was much more organised than we were and was knitting a Shetland shawl as a way of passing the journey. We shall follow her blog.

Sleeping was not really open plan as each birth had little curtains around it. What did make sleeping difficult was the temperature. Whilst it was 30 degrees C outside, inside the air conditioning must have been set at near zero. We slept with our fleeces (and socks) on.

The next day, just after we crossed the Malay border, a party of school children boarded the train. It was like a swarm of ants. They surged forward, ignoring their teachers and gradually a seat was found for all of therm. They looked at these white people with some concern. But within ten minutes the “Billy Bunter” of the party announced he was hungry; we shared our crisps, which did not go far amongst 30 children, but we made a lot of friends. Then out came the photos of Cirencester and the wedding, and we became celebrities.

More and more children wanted to see the photos; we held simple English lessons. They shared their lunches. Things got a little out of hand when they asked to see English money. Then one bright spark asked if we would swap ringgits (the Malaysian currency) for our money. We ran out of 20 pence pieces fairly quickly and had to call in the teacher to stop them wanting to change up £20 of ringgits at a time. Mind you she was interested in the money changing and the English lessons as well. By the time we got to Butterworh where we disembarked, we were being asked for our autographs, email, blog address ...

Penang

From Butterworth we took the ferry to Penang, a Malaysian island. Here we have had four days R&R in a beach resort hotel (the Shangri-La Rasa Sayang) - which is like paradise. We will forward details to all interested, but the hotel is truly out of this world. Staff appear to anticipate our every need; buffet breakfasts to die for; thick white bathrobes; fruit and 'iced' towels are offered as we lounge by one of the three pools. Even the scales in the bathroom read low. As a sign of where we have come from Jeff's first remark was 'look! toilet paper!)

The view from our room ...

Here is our beach - somewhat lopsided

But Georgetown ( the main town on Penang) despite being a world heritage site seems a bit run down; Cirencester has more history and beauty.

Today we picked up our hire car which we will drive down to Johor Bahru at the foot Peninsular Malaysia. This will enable us to see more of the country, visit the Cameron Highlands and visit a family in Melaka.

Beijing to Vientiane

19^th - 26^th October Days 19 - 26

The last episode of this thrilling saga ended with Jeff and Meg just making their train from Beijing with minutes to spare....

We found ourselves ushered to a compartment containing 4 teenage Chinese girls and every square inch taken up with their baggage was something of a surprise (particularly as there were only four berths). The carriage attendant also seemed a little bemused. No English was spoken by any of the occupants and we smiled a lot and introduced ourselves. The girls smiled back, giggled a lot and got out their mobile phones and started dialling all their friends presumably to tell them they were sharing a compartment with an OLD MAN. After a while the train manager arrived with two Mongolian women – one of whom spoke English. After a lot of hand-waving and loud talking we eventually exchanged compartments with the two women (who were, understandably, not very happy with the situation) and we settled down to the prospect of a nice uneventful 36-hour journey.

We were sharing our compartment with Quan, a young Vietnamese...

who turned out to be quite good at communicating with pen and paper and we learned quite a lot about him. (As well as some very basic Vietnamese). Our pictures of Cirencester and Tom's wedding were a great success. The Chinese girls were quite taken with the photos of Amelia with her blonde curls, and Rebecca's wedding outfit caused great excitement. They invited the whole of the rest of the train to come and see the 'weird travellers' with their funny photos.

As the journey unfolded the countryside gradually turned to rice crops and paddy fields and it became increasingly warm outside. We had come with little food and got worried when we saw that the girls' luggage consisted entirely of food, shampoo and hair gel. It was therefore a relief to find there was a restaurant car and food was also available from the trolleys at the stations (but no hair gel). Our first night passed uneventfully, (what is the dress code for bed when you share a room with a 24 year old Vietnamese man?)

We trundled on through the day. The train was less deluxe than the Trans-Siberian. Hot water was available from the attendant at the end of the compartment (electric not coal this time), but the washing facilities were shared (three basins in a room) and only cold water. We ate some of our meals in the restaurant car pointing at things that looked vaguely like food we knew. This has been a standard practice since we entered China and so far has proved a very reliable means of eating well. There has only been one incident of Jeff finding bones in what he thought was a fried egg. The stations in China are vast marble palaces that are a contradiction to the rather small houses we see by the rail side. The fields are mainly empty, usually only one or two people working there at any one time and very, very little machinery. The day moved into evening and we settled down for a disruptive night. We knew we crossed the border at about midnight and were expecting the same sort of delays we had had when we crossed from Mongolia into China.

At about midnight we pulled into Nanning and were all made to get off the train and wait in a lounge whilst something happened. No one was sure what. Eventually we all got back on and drifted into a fitfull sleep.

At about 3:00 a.m., at the Chinese border, everything was checked and stamped and the train them moved on to the Vietnamese border where we took all our luggage to the station waiting room and filled in the appropriate immigration and customs forms. After a short time we were 'invited' into a back office where we were informed that our visas were not valid – they were dated from the 26th of October, not the 20th – 'you must go back to China'.

There seemed no way around the situation. It was pointless to try to explain that the Vietnamese embassy in London must have made a mistake. We we were escorted back onto the train and returned to the Chinese border at Pingxiang where the guards were unsure what to so with us. They explained that we would have to wait until the 26th, or travel to Nanning (about 190km East) where there was a Vietnamese Consulate and we could arrange for new visas there. By now it was 5:00 a.m. and the guards, who were wonderfully courteous throughout (the Chinese obviously respect old people), took us to a small hotel and we booked in (for an hour). This hotel was clearly not in the Michelin Guide but at £3.50 a night what could you expect? It had the ambiance of a prison cell, but the sheets were clean, and as Meg pointed out she had slept in worse in Tajikistan. Note the bars on the windows ...

At 6:15 a.m we set off for the bus station having no idea where we were or where the town centre was! Our kindly hotel owner hailed us a tuk-tuk (motor bike taxi a bit like a rickshaw - see below) and we hurtled off into town. That was because the first part was downhill and the driver needed the momentum to get up the next part. ten minutes and fifty pence later (we were robbed) we were at the bus station and found there was a bus to Nanning in 10 minutes.

All attempts to ascertain how long the journey would take failed but suggested 5-6 hours .With tickets in hand were led to the bus stop and were amazed to find the bus was modern, air conditioned and very comfortable. Even more surprising, the route was an 'expressway' which meant that it could go flat out – 90km/h – most of the way, and the journey took less than 3 hours .

By now were were the only westerners in a non-tourist Chinese city, with no signs in English and not speaking any Chinese except "please", "thank you" and "chicken". But Meg did not spend a long time working on problem solving for nothing. We found a left luggage store, bought a map, and pointed to the only recognisable symbol (it was in Chinese) on the map - the train station. The taxi driver knew where to take us. When we spotted we were down town, (not at the station) we got the taxi to stop. We then went into the nearest 5-star hotel, figuring that if anywhere in the town would speak English it was there. We had got one of the train staff to write 'Vietnamese Embassy' in Chinese and e showed this to the desk staff .. who got a manager .. who phoned a friend and the address of the Embassy was duly written in Chinese on paper with a mark on our map. The next taxi driver knew exactly what to do (drive us round in circles clocking up a reasonable sum on the meter before arriving at the Embassy from the other direction). So by 11:30 we were in the Vietnamese Embassy, which turned out to be a consulate, trying to explain the situation. Eventually a very helpful English-speaking "boss" was found and he explained that the only way to remedy the situation was to purchase new visas. It would cost 76 pounds but they would waive the express fee. We should come back at 6 p.m.

So we spent the day in Nanning, wandering round, being impressed by the marvellous floral decorations which were in place because the ASEAN summit was being held in the town and watching cavalcades of very expensive black limos streaming along as the police closed the roads for them.

At lunchtime there were several 'dancing classes' held in in public squares in the centre of the city.

We ate in a local market, again pointing at plates on tables, and paid one pound equivalent for about three times what we could eat.

Later that afternoon we decided to treat ourselves and went to a Western ice cream parlour where Jeff had a wonderful looking concoction that contained - er - lumps of jelly and aduki beans. Well, you can't win them all. We sought out an internet cafe to try to tell the children we were OK. There were lots of policemen around because of the summit, and rather than try to explain to us where the cafe was one of them took us there in his car. Jeff wanted to have the siren on but - again - we didn't have the language.

You can imagine the euphoria when we got the visas. Taxi back to bus station and bus back to Ping Xiang, the town we had arrived at at 5 a.m. We had initially thought it might be a one-hotel town, but found it much grander than we imagined. We settled on a hotel called New Century, and were only a little taken aback when we found that as well as daily rates there were hourly rates. Some very nice young women kept phoning Jeff to see if he was alright. There were no phone calls for Meg,.

That night we ate in a small family restaurant and by the end of the evening we thought the family might have adopted us. They enjoyed having their photo taken ...

The next day we trundled our bags to the bus station and amazingly bought a ticket to Hanoi for £8 pounds each.

We had a couple of hours to kill so we took in the local market. There were all sorts of foods for sale - including live animals. We only show the ducks here as the cats and dogs might upset some of our more sensitive readers.

The bus journey to Hanoi was a doddle. The coach was large and air-conditioned, we were escorted through customs in an electric golf buggy. Three and a half hours later (and twenty four hours later than planned) we were in our hotel. It was wonderful. The staff spoke English and seemed to be able to sort any little problem. Jeff's bag had ripped and they arranged for it to be mended and returned within an hour and charged 75p.

Hanoi. 22nd - 24th October

The motorcycle is king in Hanoi. They are everywhere buzzing around like flies. Crossing the road is an even greater art form than in Beijing. The technique which worked for us was to walk slowly out into the road and keep walking. The traffic seemed to melt away around us. We began to realise that the motorbikes do not have brakes and traffic management is by driver anticipation not road rules.

The main railway line passes through the centre of the city with no level crossing barriers. Could you imagine this in London?

I won't go on about the touristy bits in Hanoi, except to say that the Vietnamese must all have a gene for commerce and selling. They seem to be able to sell anything to anyone. There are many peddlers in the street like this one viewed from our hotel window.

This is a street market in the old quarter.

Our hotel in the old quarter was described as "boutique" which I think means small. As you can see it had wireless internet ...

But when you saw the size of the living quarters of the Vietnamese what we had was pretty palatial. Whole families seem to live in one room, sleeping on tiny beds, cooking on fuel stoves and living alongside their chickens, even in the middle of the city. Just how the Americans came to be defeated by them is a mystery. We gained great respect for the Vietnamese people, and learned a lot about the suffering brought about by the war. We also experienced an exceptionally high level of service, but you have to haggle for anything you want to buy. This is counter intuitive to Jeff who clearly would hand over the kids inheritance before negotiating.

Vientiane, Laos. 24th - 26th October

For the next step of the journey we had already planned to give up our moral high ground and had booked a flight. The alternative was a 26-hour bus journey in a non-air conditioned bus with no toilet stops (well, only when the bus breaks down which is often sufficient). Despite this being a gap year, it did not seem sensible to travel back-packer style for this section. So we took to the air (175kg of CO2 for the 50 minute flight). Flying was really boring after all our ground based travelling. It was all too easy. Even applying for the Laotian visa on entry seemed to be a doddle.

Vientiane, the capital of Laos, seems a world away from Hanoi. It is calm and ordered where Hanoi is frenetic; the roads are wide; there are more cars, mainly large SUVs. Like the Vietnamese these people seem to smile all the time. They practice their English "hello" and we practice our one word of Laotian (which is thank you).

The town is on the banks of the Mekong and one of the memorable moments of our trip will be of sitting in a bar on the bank of the rive, with beer in hand, watching the fishermen throwing their nets as the sun slipped down into the water.

This is a tuk-tuk, pretty much universal in all the Asian countries we have passed through. The ride can be a bit hairy (no seat belts) but quite efficient.

There are many many temples, with much restoration of them following the bombing by the US.This is a typical Buddha in one of the temples

Laos has the dubious international reputation of being one of the most bombed countries in the world. It is also one of the poorest. It has poor economic development because it is landlocked, with limited education. Meg once again thought of Tajikistan. There are saffron-clad monks wandering the streets seeking alms. The Laotians seem to have incorporated a respect for a king, a reverence for Buddhism and remain communist. It seems to be a very laid- back form of communism.

This is Patuxai which is the National monument - allegedly built with the money given by the USA (to build an airport).

The museum is full of pictures of visiting communist dignitaries. But alongside this there is the evidence of growing westernisation. There is clearly a trend for the young to dress western style and the status given to "coffee bars". We somehow managed to get into the background shots of a documentary being made for Lao television on 'good restaurants in Vientiane': look out for it if you get a chance. Meg is the one with the big grin. We also went to a pop concert being sponsored by a mobile phone company. All I would say about the Laotian pop-stars is that they should not anticipate a large recording contract just yet. I think they do it much better in South Cerney.

Next stop - Bangkok

Beijing

Monday 13th - Sunday 19th October Days 12-18


Our week in Beijing exceeded all expectations. The moment we emerged from Beijing Railway Station we were hit by the noise, bustle, the crowds, the traffic. It is such a vibrant city – a fast moving and complex visual experience that takes a lot of getting used to. It is a little disconcerting to not speak the language at all but we were surprised at the amount of signage in Roman characters. This made navigation with a map possible (but not exactly easy).














Our hotel was in a 'hutong' only minutes from the railway station. Very convenient and - with quadruple glazing – remarkably quiet (although after 6 nights sleeping on a train anything would seem quiet). At £27 per night it was a real bargain and had everything that we needed. Chinese hotels are much cheaper than the western 'chain' hotels such as the Marriott (nearby). We had English speaking staff and the buffet breakfast – at £1 each – gave us a chance to try some Chinese food and fill ourselves. Walking round the city near the station, you could easily imagine you were in Regent's St. in London – women in the latest designer clothes (or copies), glass and marble -fronted shops selling all the latest fashions, etc. But dip into a side alley (hutong) and you are in another world – in some cases more like the 3rd World. The houses are single storey and accessed through gates opening into the alleys. Behind these gates are rabbit warrens full of bikes, chairs, tools, and similar. The original dwellings (many have been renovated) have no hot water or flush toilets – there are public toilets in many of the alleys (not generally to be recommended!)

We walked and walked (and cycled) miles – probably covering about 10 miles each day – in and out of hutongs, shopping malls, parks and markets. The metro is easy to use and very cheap.

Tienanmen Square at night ...















Occasionally we would take in a 'required' tourist site such as the Forbidden City ...




























or the Lama Temple















but these are the places where you find tourists in such enormous numbers that the experience can be less than pleasant. Tourists generally seem to belong to organised groups, each with a particular colour of baseball cap and a guide with a flag somewhere up front.

We visited the Great Wall on the first day, with a couple from Denmark who we had met on the train. We went to Muytianu which is less touristy. It is well worth the 2 hour (each way) ride. You have to survive the Great Wall Mall on the way in and out.




















Before we left England we contacted two locals – one Chinese and one a young Canadian living in the city. To both we are very grateful. Through them we saw aspects of Beijing life that would otherwise have been impossible – the inside of a hutong house, an apartment in the suburbs, amazing local restaurants.

This is the entrance to the Sichuan Restaurant that we ate at the first night - absolutely amazing food and an experience we will never forget. (This is what it looked like in the day time...)















The one overriding memory will be the friendliness of the people. So many wonderful smiles. Youngsters wanting to practice their one word of English ('hello') and then bursting into giggles. So many times we were offered help – sometimes to point our that money was showing in Jeff's back pocket or that a pocket of our bag was open. Some people really put themselves out to help us, detouring from their journey to take us where we wanted to go.

We saw no evidence of oppression – although that is not to say it isn't the case. There is clearly an 'underclass' sweeping the streets, tending the greenery in parks and on the roadsides, etc – mostly from the provinces. These (mainly) migrant workers are almost invisible as they go about their work.

It is amazing what you can get on a tricycle. There are people who go round sorting out refuse from the bins and carrying it off to - presumably - recycling points where they get paid for it















This street scene is unusual as it has very few people in it















There are some beautiful parks - some with rivers and lakes and you see lots of people (mainly old like us) enjoying the air (which we did not find polluted at all)

One day we went out to the Olympic Stadium which was teeming with tourist groups.














We eventually found our way out and found a tiny restaurant where the only diners were the 'management'. We pointed hopefully at what they were eating and indicated 'two please'. It was delicious.















The young Chinese are virtually all without siblings as a result of the state's one-child policy. It is hard to imagine the consequences of this. We talked about this quite a lot during our week.

We saw a lot of people playing Chinese Chess or Go on the streets. Sometimes there would be a big crowd round the games. Jeff wanted to find some real chess but never did.





























We finally left Beijing for Hanoi on Sunday – yet again running desperately to get to the train and arriving with only 3 minutes to spare. For the story of this trip – which involves being deported from Viet Nam and being driven by police car to an internet cafe - you will have to wait for the next instalment...

Days 6-12 The Trans-Mongolian Railway

Wednesday 8^th, Day 6
St Basil's in Red square. It's funny that I didn't notice that it was at an angle at the time




















Red Square in the rain

The train is so luxurious! There is so much space and it feels shiny and new. We even have a shower (shared with out neighbours in the next compatment and only cold water – but what a step up). Our thoughts had been that the train from Cologne was exactly what we would get from Moscow to Beijing but I had heard that there is a Chinese train on this route which is far superior and this is it! While the problem of tickets has yet to be resolved we are enjoying the camarade of the English-speaking passengers in carriage number 9 on train number 4.

Sleeping was difficult with all the adrenalin from the journey to the station and the hassle with the tickets. Our driver got caught in heavy traffic and what should have been a 20 minute trip took over an hour leaving us with 25 minutes to find the train – and he pointed us to the domestic terminal instead of the international terminal. We ran flat out with heavy bags for about 400 m to arrive with only half the tickets. And of course we fond that the tickets only took us as far as Ulan Bator ...

Today has been a matter of settling in to the culture of the train. Our cheerful carriage attendant 'Doo” supplies us with a thermos of hot water every so often and most compartments leave their doors open so that people drop in for a chat. The stops at the stations are a big excitement as we bargain for un recognisable items of food in plastic bags held out by the local women. They do not seem to display any food-handling certificates and one feels that hygiene rules may not always be strictly adhered to but it is interesting - and we are close to the toilet so its worth taking a chance.

The country is very autumnal with birch trees everywhere mixed with what seem to be spruce. The yellow of the changing birch leaves contrasts with the deep green of the spruce to give a display of colour I have never seen before. The rural areas are clearly very poor and what industrial towns we have passed through show strongly their Soviet origins – large heavy equipment, lots of concrete, in a terriblly run-down state.

Thursday 9^th October, Day 7 (2000km from Moscow)

Dawn over Siberia. We passed over the line dividing Europe and Asia some time during the night and woke up to see the sun rise over a different landscape. We seem to have outrun the rain that we travelled through yesterday and the sky is a clear blue. The coniferous trees have gone and the birch that remans is more advanced into winter. There is much more open land – some large scale cultivation but mainly rough grassland. This is not quite what I imagined but in winter it would presumably be under several feet of snow.

You see quite a lot of these water pipes - but look at the lagging. How do you transport water when the temperature is -30 degrees C?

Our train going through the forests in Siberia

Friday 10^th October
Day 8 (4000km)

A hard frost quickly disappeared under early morning sunshine. The landscape has changed again. We can see rolling hills for the first time. The trees are very bare now but there are more villages and, now, lots of small ramshackle greenhouses in amongst the vegetable plots. We can't decide if these plots, with their tiny 'houses' attached are dachas (weekend 'allotments') or actually living quarters. We go though Krasnoyasrsk (4100km), a big city of nearly a milion people – typically drab and very industrial.

The crows we saw were a moment of excitement as we have been wondering where all the birds are. The cold winter probably means that most birds are migratory and have long since left for the winter. At the station we were offered a bucket of cherries for 200 roubles (£5). We took a handful. They were very small and a little sharp with tiny pips.

The landscape rolls on and on with little variation – grasses that have turned yellow and stands of birch trees. There are hills from time to time (that the train makes hard work of) but otherwise little changes. The stations provide a focus when all the carriage come together on the platform. Some take the opportunit for a smoke while others are busy deciding what food to buy (or what the food is). At the last stop we phoned the travel agent and were promised that the tickets will be delivered to our carrialge at Irkutz (at 5:30 a.m.) . Why does that not fill me with optimism?

A typical station 'supermarket'


















...and sometimes the vendors were a little less formal
You take your chances but no one in the carriage was ill.



















Although the train is 'electric', they load up coal at each station - for each carriage.
This supplies the heat for the fictional hot water (and probably the carriage heating)




















... and here is the boiler in the carriage. Well we thought this was interesting.

Saturday 11^th October Day 9

At 5.00 the train pulled into Irkutz station and there, waiting at the entrance to our carriage, was a man with our tickets for Beijing. I am sure we would have coped if we had had to leave the train at Ulan Bator but it would have meant less time in Beijing and a lot of hassle. Unable to sleep, we sat in the dark watching the stars move around in the sky as the train twisted and turned on its way though the hills to Lake Baikal. This lake hold 20% of the worlds fresh water.

It was well worth getting up at 5:00 a.m. to meet the 'man with the tickets'.

We really had resigned ourselves to having to get off at Ulan Bator

Our first glimpse of the lake was by light reflected from the street lamps of Slyudyanka but as we rounded the lake the sky began to lighten. Dawn breaking over the lake was the highlight of the journey so far. The train then climes up above the lake with snow capped mountings to the south and the lake below to the north.

Dawn over Lake Baikal - the picture can only hint at this wonderful spectacle

The journey to Ulan Ude was full of interest. We seem to have too much to do and it is hard to find time to write this. The train follows the valley of the Selenga river and we move from one side of the train to the other to depending on which goies the more interesting view. The villages are poorer than previously, and there is no mistaking their tiny ramshackle houses for 'dachas' here.

After Ulan Ude we reach the border control at Naushki. In our carriage everyone is trying to work out how to complete the immigration/emigration forms and we all decide to go with the Lonely Planet guide to the Ukraine version asn this seems to be an identical form. The whole process appears to be entirely without point but more a show of who is in charge as officials scrutinise our passports and then walk off with them. We have a carriage 'party' during the 6-hour wait (one at each border post). There is plenty of Russian champagne and something that is a cross between Ribena and Sherry. Everyone contributes something from their stock of food and, as some of us get off the train early tomorrow at Ulan Bator, there is a really nice atmosphere.

Snow on the KhamarDaban mountains



















This childrens' play area was the first signs that we saw (since leaving Moscow) of any play facilities for children - no football pitches, basketball nets, swings, playgrounds, etc.



















The next two are the Selenga River.
We followed the river valley before going up nto the mountains






































A small Siberian village

After Ulan Ude we reach the border control at Naushki. In our carriage everyone is trying towork out how to complete the immigration/emigration forms and we all decide to go with the Lonely Planet guide to the Ukraine version and this seems to be an identical form. The whole process appears to be entirely without point but more a show of who is in charge as officials scrutinise our passports and then walk off with them. We have a carriage 'party' during the 6-hour wait (one at each border post). There is plenty of Russian champagne and something that is a cross between Ribena and Sherry. Everyone contributes something from their stock of food and, as some of us get off the train early tomorrow at Ulan Bator, there is a really nice atmosphere.

Most of our carriage - taken by "1 Yen", one of the carriage attendants (Huan Yen - I think)

Our farewell 'party' - well some of them

Sunday 12^th October Day 10

Everyone is up early to say goodbye to those that are leaving. UB is very different and we can tell immediately that it is no longer in Russia. New passengers arrive – we now have French 'bathroom buddies'. I made the mistake of speaking a little French to them and now they talk fast and incomprehensibly while I nod and smile.

We climb the mountains (two diesel locos now) and see small patches of snow on the side of the track and finally reach the watershed that divides the run off between the Arctic and the Yellow Sea off the coast of China. We are now crossing the Gobi Desert. We see the occasional camels that roam wild here. The Gobi Desert goes on and on. The landscape changes gradually from sparse grassland into a more sandy soil with intermittent vegetaion (reminiscent of the prairies in the USA) and we begin to see red tingest in the soil. By the time we reach the border post the soil is more reddish and some of the distant sandy hills are the same colour as Ayers Rock as they reflect the light from the setting sun.

This is Ulan Bator Station - the capital city of Mongolia



















The train in Mongolia - OK it isnt much to look at but its
all there was to take a photo of


















Mountains in Mongolia

Going through the border into China is once again a long drawn out process. Passports disappear and reappear, forms are filled in. (What do they do with all these forms?) The bogeys have to be changed back to the narrower guage but this time the process is done in a clean railway shed with us in the carriages and uniformed guards overseeing the process. 'Supervisors' take digital photos of the underside of the carriages for some obscure reason. We eventually begin to move again just after midnight.

Monday 13^th October Day 11

We have a complementary breakfast today as the restaurant car is now chinese. This consists of bread, butter, jam and two hard boiled eggs but is very welcome.

The change in the view from the carriage is the most dramatic so far – lots of heavy industry, massive buildoing works, half-completed motorways, and enormous stretches of maize being harvested. This appears to be done with scythes but the crop is then loaded onto tractors (sometimes donkey-drawn carts) and taken off to, presumably store for animal feed.

There are some sizable mountains to our left, several miles away, and we see deep 'gulches where the run off has cut through the soft surface layer.

There is great excitement as Meg spots the Great Wall and this spreads through the train – everyone is on the side facing the wall. Cameras click away taking blurred pictures of the Wall, through the hazy atmosphere, at a distance of several kilometres. I suggest buying a postcard in Beijing but no one seems to understand this.