Trans-Mongolian Railway, Irkutsk-Ulan Bator Leg

Saturday to Monday, 7 - 9 October 2006

The train journey to Ulan Bator takes 2 days. We share a cabin with Marina, a Russian lady. In spite of the language difficulties we get on well - having seen our 3 consecutive meals of cream crackers and Russian Easi-Singles cheese, she takes pity on us and gives us a mammoth roll of salami, insisting (by way of head-shaking and casting-of-eyes-up-to-heaven) that we take all of it, as we clearly needed it more than her! We try to return the favour by offering her the only edible thing in our food stash - a Ritter Sport chocolate bar - but she must think that we are on the poverty-line as she politely refuses.

The journey itself is unremarkable. However, the 6 hour border-crossing between Russia and Mongolia is a fitting farewell by Russia's bureaucracy to the tourists it has befuddled for the last few weeks. 5 of the 6 hours consist of complete inactivity by the customs and border officials, only to be then followed by a uniformed hurricane of cabin-searching, form-perusing and document-stamping. On the Mongolian side, the whole procedure takes about an hour.