Russia –> Mongolia

October 2, 2010: After an insanely fast ride to the station (red lights, oncoming lanes and curbs don’t matter at night, and seat belts are overrated anyway…) I finally made it to the station, shaking. Compared to the Trans-Siberian, the Trans-Mongolian Railway wasn’t quite as luxurious, but it was perfectly fine.

The train was heated with coal. The same corner doubled as the conductors‘ cooking spot.

Luckily I shared the four-berth compartment with a Belgian, who kept me supplied with tomato soup, chocolate bars and genuine Belgian cookies. A really pleasant ride, during which I caught up on lots of sleep.

In the evening we reached the Russian-Mongolian border.

Border formalities took more than five hours and were at times quite entertaining. The sniffer dogs, for example, were really cute little mini dogs (dachshund-schnauzer mixes…). Anything but intimidating, and not exactly well trained either. One of the militiamen apparently thought it perfectly normal when his dog marked our compartment door and the second dog then marked over it…
After a short sleep and a one-hour time change, the train pulled into Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, at 6:30 a.m.