On the Train to Beijing

It was 5:30am when I got up this Sunday morning. Ready to catch my last train of the TransSiberia just to complete it. The hostel offered us a lift to the station at 6:20am supposed to cost each of us a 1000MNT. We were 5 backpackers plus a few staff squeezed into the car. When we wanted to pay the driver the hostel manager just meant ‘NO No its for free’. Once more someone wanted to make some extra pocket money in this country!
Shortly after our arrival at the station the train was showing up as well. According to the information I got from the web page we were supposed to be in a soft sleeper car. Expecting a full train I quickly realised it was a quite empty one compared to others I took before. At last our carriage. Instead of just the two of us in a compartment we ended up with four. Even if many of the compartments were empty. The staff refused to relocate people. Actually we not even got our compartment and the ladies with us neither. One of the – a CEO of a Mongolian company – was pregnant in the 7th month. Not even she and her assistant got relocated at least not for the moment. The two staff member were kind of unfriendly. The lady called up a former manager of the Mongolian railway and handed the phone over to the steward which was listening to but not really changing anything afterwards. Once I went down the floor I recognised what went on inside of the compartment I originally booked. The stewards were drying their laundry! Seriously. I was mentioning it to one of them that I booked one of those seats and the response was a simple ‘NO NOOO’. Lucky us, after a few hours they relocated people and we all got our two person compartments.

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To spent some of the left over money I went to the dinning car which was amazing. Wooden craftwork all done in Mongolian style. The food was surprisingly good, better than on Russian restaurant cars but the service was worse. Only having one menu, playing card instead of serving you and to pay I had to get up and go to her. Back in my place paperwork was waiting on being filled out. Two were done easily but the third paper was in Mongolian only. After another ‘No NO’ to my question about an english one I stuck for a moment. Finally, the two ladies from earlier were helping us out and we could help them with an english Chinese form which they got in mandarin only.

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Crossing the border took some time but was without any effort. They not even asked for a paper I was supposed to keep till I leave Mongolia. And getting into China was a thing of seconds. NO problems, no questions, no checkup of the backpack. Later on the train got pulled into a maintenance hall where our carriages including us got jacked. After just about 60 to 90 minutes the wheels were fitted to the Chinese gauge and the train was ready. Finally we could get some sleep.
To our surprise we got some vouchers for a free breakfast and lunch on the Chinese restaurant carriage. 6:30 the breakfast was waiting. Luckily the two eggs were still warm since the restaurant wagon was freezing cold. Beside the eggs some toast with jam was offered and a tea. Lunch time was just two hours later consisting of a bowl of rice with some meat and vegetables, it was actually quite ok. The ride till Beijing offered some great views to the mountains. Unfortunately we passed out after lunch and missed parts of the great wall. After 28h my longest trans siberian train journey was over and with it I also was at the end of the Trans Siberian.

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