So after a fab trip on the Trans Mongolian Railway I have arrived safe and sound in Beijing!
The 4 day journey to Mongolia was not as bad as I expected! It was really quite fun, I think the group of people I was with made it. The cabins were really small with 4 bunk like beds a tiny toilet for the whole carriage... I wont go into details I am sure you can imagine!!! The scenery as we went through Russia was lovely, lots of snow around, at one station we stopped at there must have been at least 5 inchs! We stopped at quite a lot of stations but we were only there for 30 minutes maximum so we didn't really get chance to look around much, not that I think there was a lot, just wooden shacks! As we got into Mongolia, after a very painful 8 hour border crossing the scenery changed quite dramatically.
We amused ourselves on the train by playing games, drinking vodka, watching movies on the ipods and making friends with the Mongolians in our cabins. The Mongolians take the train back and forth to Russia to sell goods at the different stations. By all accounts it is big business and local people go to the local train stations as we would go to Rackhams to get the latest handbag or jeans... all knock off though!! It was quite entertaining a couple of stops before the border crossing when they were trying to sell or hide all the goods so they wouldn't have to declare them!!
We arrived in Ulaanbaratar, Mongolia's Capital early in the morning and headed start to the hostel, which was not all bad. Ulaanbaratar is a really dusty place, and after a couple of days it really starts getting to you. There is rubbish everywhere and the men spit all the time and don't care where it may land!!! I can only speak as I find, but the Mongolians were not the friendliest bunch of people I have ever met! The food was also not to my liking with everything swimming in grease and the inclusion of piece of fat is the norm in their cooking. Now I feel I have not painted a great picture of Mongolia so far, which to be honest is how I felt. But then as we went out into the Countryside to stay at a traditional Mongolian Ger Camp my opinion changed! The Mongolian countryside was absolutely beautiful with mountains everywhere you look and animals grazing on the land. Because of the time of year there was no greenery and everything looked barren but impressive non the less. It was one of the girls birthdays when we got back to Ulaanbaratar so we decided to check out what a Mongolian night club had to offer! We were not disappointed, even though it was a Wednesday night there were plenty of people dancing with us to the cheesy English pop music. There were plenty of security guards about and after about the 5th fight broke out we understood why.
It was then time to get back on the train for a short 2 day journey to Beijing. I enjoyed Mongolia for the experience and the fab Countryside but I don't think it is somewhere that I will be heading back to soon!
2 days down in Beijing and I am absolutely loving it here! The people are so friendly and welcoming and there is a really nice if not busy atmosphere. At night time everything is lit up with red neon lights and it looks really impressive. By day you have to be on the look out all the time for the mad cyclists. I think the taxi experiences I had in Mongolia have prepared me for anything to happen on the roads so I am not finding the roads as bad as I thought, but they are still slightly mad when it comes to driving. We all went to watch a Kung Fu show last night at the theatre which was really lovely. It was all about the history of Kung Fu with a really nice story. The acrobats and dancing was amazing with brilliant music and lights. We also had a slap up authentic Chinese meal with Peking Duck which was to die for all for the grand total of 1 pound 99 pence!!! Unbelievable!
Off to a Chinese Acrobat Show tonight... the fun just never ends!!!
I have tried to upload some pictures but it was very painful... there are one or two St Petersburg ones though. I will try to upload some more soon x