As the title suggests, this was the
beginning of our overland adventure, no more airports or planes for at least a
month! To be honest, 30 hours on a train doesn’t sound overly inviting, but we
were surprised how much we liked it. After what felt like a very full-on start
to our honeymoon, it was kind of nice to be able to sit backwith nothing much
to do.. it was forced down-time which gave us a chance to read, catch up on
photos and of course our favorite series at the moment - Breaking Bad. We found
ourselves nestled in to our double compartment, and it washes over you that
you’ll be here for the next day and a half..
There isn’t too much to write about the train,
except it was pretty comfortable, had two beds and a little table and shower.
Was nice and warm (which was handy for drying our clothes after the torrential
downpour we experienced on our way to the station in Beijing) and had a hot
water boiler which came in handy for our tasty pot noodle lunch and dinner –
and the occasional cup of tea.
The border crossing from China into
Mongolia was fine, except for the two hours where the train gets lifted off the
tracks and they change the wheels over (the Mongolian and Russian train tracks
are smaller then the Chinese ones), so this was two hours of loud clunking,
jolting and all round annoying discomfort. But it was all part of the
experience.
Dinner in the dining cart was extremely
questionable and well and truly sub par, but at least it was dirt-cheap. In the
morning we crossed the Mongolian border, and the Chinese dining cart was
swapped for a Mongolian one, which was a lot nicer and food was pretty good,
but the breakfast was outrageously expensive and we didn’t actually have enough
money to pay for it! (and they didn’t take card) So with a mix matched bunch of
notes (Chinese, Rubles and US) we managed to scrape together enough to pay our
way.
Besides that little hiccup, we enjoyed the
ride and took in the views of rolling hills with not even a tree in sight, some
old Russian aircraft hangers hidden in the mountains and some pretty mountains
and rivers.
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