We shared our cabin to Mongolia with two older ladies from Brighton. Having not met a single non-Russian on our trains over the previous four weeks, we felt like we'd stepped onto the tourist express (admittedly, a very slow moving express - the 260km to the border took about five hours). We saw more non-Russians on that train than we had done since leaving Moscow. Apart from the time it took, the border crossing was happily uneventful for us (an American chap had more difficulty after apparently having some pages ripped out of his passport at immigration).
Thinking we had 12 minutes at the Mongolian side of the border, we rushed around like mad men to get some food - only to return to the train just in time and find out that Mongolia is an hour behind Russia, so we could sit down in a cafe and enjoy some local fast food (of the stir fry variety - the menu was incomprehensible to us, so we relied on the lovely waitress to just pick two dishes) and a beer before heading off to Ulaanbaatar (UB to its friends). We caught sight of or first gers within a few minutes of setting off - outside of UB, almost the whole population is nomadic, moving every 3 or 4 months. Although they don't have running water, modernity has not passed them by: solar panels and satellite dishes abound.
We were woken by an over enthusiastic carriage attendant about an hour and a half before our 6am arrival, but at least we got to see some nice scenery before we got to UB and its communist architectural charms (with a few modern glass high rises in evidence). UB means Red Hero in Mongolian - not the original name you'll understand - it got that name when the Russians helped "liberate" it from the Chinese. They liked the country so much, they set up a puppet government. UB's had a few names over the years, the first simply meaning Camp.
Thinking we had 12 minutes at the Mongolian side of the border, we rushed around like mad men to get some food - only to return to the train just in time and find out that Mongolia is an hour behind Russia, so we could sit down in a cafe and enjoy some local fast food (of the stir fry variety - the menu was incomprehensible to us, so we relied on the lovely waitress to just pick two dishes) and a beer before heading off to Ulaanbaatar (UB to its friends). We caught sight of or first gers within a few minutes of setting off - outside of UB, almost the whole population is nomadic, moving every 3 or 4 months. Although they don't have running water, modernity has not passed them by: solar panels and satellite dishes abound.
We were woken by an over enthusiastic carriage attendant about an hour and a half before our 6am arrival, but at least we got to see some nice scenery before we got to UB and its communist architectural charms (with a few modern glass high rises in evidence). UB means Red Hero in Mongolian - not the original name you'll understand - it got that name when the Russians helped "liberate" it from the Chinese. They liked the country so much, they set up a puppet government. UB's had a few names over the years, the first simply meaning Camp.
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