Beijing to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia (3 August): the Wrong Wheels

3 August

Train from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar

Gracie’s Blog: We are on the train to Mongolia. We are in hard sleeper, but it feels like soft sleeper. I’m on the top bunk and my Dad is on the bottom bunk. We are with six people. They are my dad, aunt Liz, Cousin Skye, my sister Carrie, my Brother Liam and I. We have to have two rooms because we have too many people. Only four people can stay in a compartment. So Aunt Liz, Carrie, Liam and Skye are in a compartment together. Dad and I are in a compartment together, but we have to share it with people from France. Last night I went to sleep very late but I got a lot of sleep because I woke up at like 9:00. The reason we had to stay up so late is because the train was getting new wheels because the tracks in China are different from the tracks in Mongolia. What I liked about the train is that the rooms were really fancy: fancy seat covers, fancy TV’s (but not so fancy that they turned on), and something that was really nice was that you could lift up the bottom seat and put your bags in there and close it. Voila! Some of the least favorite parts about the train were that we would have to ask the train people to turn on the A/C. Soft sleeper class had a chair, but we didn’t get those in hard sleeper. I didn’t like that because we only had our seats to sit on.

Angus’ Blog: The train is almost to our first stop in Mongolia. Looking out the window I see roads cross the steppe with actual traffic. When we woke up this morning – quite late, in fact – we were still in the Gobi. Dun colored scrub stretched in all directions. Over the next several hours the ground earned green sprigs and then legitimate vegetation, slowing sprouting the occasional white gers (yurts) and small herd of cows. Hills rise in the background. There was a windfarm. But there were rarely people, rarely cars. The electric wires were our only constant companion. So the contrast with these suburbs of Ulaan Baator is striking.

You get a lot of this out the window.

We awoke late because the train from China to Mongolia is a bit of work. We arrived at the Chinese border at 9 pm, but we had the wrong wheels. That’s right – we had to change wheels. So after handing in our passports the train headed (with us in it because we refused to stay off) to a long shed in which they lifted the train to put on new gauge wheels, a several hour affair. We didn’t leave then until after 1 am, arriving at the Mongolian border just before 2:00. Mongolia was as easy as anything can be at that hour – I’m glad I didn’t have any of worker’s jobs – but we weren’t on our way until 2:30 am. Luckily, the kids were not required to be conscious or else Gracie, instead of gregariously telling our neighbors in the next compartment all about our travels she would be a wreck.

The shed for wheel changing at the Mongolian border.
The red steel uprights foist the cars. I slept through it!

Of us all, Skye is probably the most prepared for Mongolia. Phrasebook in hand, she’s been preparing all morning. She has flash cards. She’s watched videos. She’s ready to dive in.

Outside the traveling cars have led to the outskirts of our city. Instead of slums, though, we see compounds of gers. Instead of a ramshackle, Ulaan Baator begins with an increased density of tents.

27 hours is not a long enough train ride. Yesterday I had a luxuriously long time to edit the Beijing video. But it seriously sucked up the whole day save for a few minutes set aside for conversation, border administration and putting children to bed. Today I was able to finish, but couldn’t make much progress here on the blog. And this all occurs under the shadow of correspondence with students, colleagues and papers. Tomorrow we’re going out into the hinterlands – there may be no wifi for days. Better get the done tonight!

With a little planning, trains are well-tolerated.