We are back in civilization again, after having spent 4 days, 5 nights on a train, and then straight onto sleeping one night in a Mongolian ger.

So we go to Moscow's train station to catch our train. The train arrives, and it is full chaos with all the Mongolian tradesmen and all of their stuff trying to get on the train. We somehow manage to get into our wagon, the hallway is so narrow, only one person can fit at a time. A Mongolian man comes towards me, then yells something in my face when he realizes he can't pass me, that was my very first impression of the people we would spent our next 4 days with. We find out where our compartment (kupe) is, and luckily we are sharing it with two swedish girls our own age. I cannot say how happy we were to have each other during the next 4 days, I can't imagine having shared with anyone else. Suddenly a Mongolian woman is pushed into our compartment and "falls" on top of Maiken's handbag, and stays there for just a little too long. Once she has got up, I tell Maiken to check that she has everything in her bag.. wallet is gone! We run after the woman, take her back, I yell at her, demanding her to open her bag and empty her pockets. She gets so angry and probably calls me every bad word there is in Mongolian, I thought she was about to hit me! She doesn't seem to have the wallet (anymore..), so we let her go, still sure it was her. A couple of minutes later, Maiken's wallet is found in the hallway. All the money's gone, but the cards are still there, luckily.. We shut our door, and don't open it till the next morning, great start! (The next day, both Maiken and one of the Swedish girls realize ther cameras are also gone...)

The next 4 days on the train pass somehow, and we're not even that bored. We read, get to know the Swedish girls, make friends with the Taiwanese girl next door, go off at stations to buy water bottles (but not for too long, coz we are terrified of the train leaving without us!), eat, write in our diaries and look out the window. Russia looked pretty much the same the whole time, little grey towns with 50 small rundown houses and a fabric. I still can't believe anyone can live there. It looks exactly the same as what you would imagine Russia to be like.. just sad.. It's only when we get to Mongolia that the landscape changes and becomes more and more beautiful. At the Russian border, the guards come aboard, we stay for 4 hours while they go through our passports and visas, they look like they do in old 80s movies that stereotype Russians, only this time, the stereotype is just right! Russians hats, no smiles, all serious and strict, and when I ask a question the reply is "No!" and "Wait!!". Don't think I'll visit Russia again anytime soon! They give us papers to fill out..in Russian and Mongolian.. we have no clue what it says, seeing as it's a completely different alphabet, and the Russians don't seem to understand why we ask for an English version..

The provdonista (female conductor) in our wagon hates us. She is probably the biggest b**** (excuse my language), I have ever met! The first morning I go to get hot water in my cup (which every guidebook says is free, and everyone else walks over and fills up their cup). "No! Money!!", she says looking strictly at me, she is probably 1.80 cm tall and looks very scary. "Excuse me?", I say "No one else has to pay". She yells at me in Russian and says "MONEY!!" again. I refuse to pay 10 kroners for a cup of hot water so I leave, the Swedish girls also thought the water was free, and as we're talking, a Mongolian woman walks over, fills her cup and walks back to her compartment. I point at her and tell this mean woman that it is completely unfair that I have to pay and not anyone else. She refuses to let me get hot water, and I end up going to another wagon to get some. Later, the only mongolian on the train who speaks English, helps us, tells the woman off, and she never tried to make us pay again.

Over the next days, she keeps yelling at us, pushing us, locking us out of the wagon even. The Swedish girls went to check out the restaurant wagon, and didn't come back until an hour later, turns out they were locked out of wagons on the way back, and people refused to let them in! The mean woman even tried to make us smuggle stuff into Mongolia for her! She opens us door and gives us two small boxes, and points at our pillows, she wants us to hide them. No way! I talk to her in English, showing her we won't do it. She yells and screams and probably swears at us in Russian, before she finally takes her boxes and leaves.. I wonder how anyone like that can ever get a job where they have to deal with people!!!! Sadly she ruined the trip for us in many ways...

Yesterday we finally got to Ulan- Bator, Mongolia's capital. A man came to pick us up from the train station, and drove us to the countryside. He is friendly and speaks English well...what a relief from Russia! Mongolia is beautiful, like another world,or planet. We are speechless as we drive through the valleys. We go to see touristy things, and decide to hike up the mountain to a Buddhist meditation center. We stayed the night at a ger, kind of a tent, which the nomadic people of Mongolia live in. We also visited an old woman in her ger, and got to know about her everyday life. So different from ours! The ger was nice and cozy, and the nicest, cutest man ever, worked there and took care of us, making sure there was always fire in the fireplace. Coz it was a cold -5 outside, but sunny and beautiful.

Today we were driven to Ulan-Bator, and we took our first shower in 6 days! I have never enjoyed a shower more! Now we'll be going for a vegetarian Mongolian restaurant, then doing sightseeing tomorrow. Thursday we will head back on the train, headed for Beijing. And I guess that's when I'll be able to update next! :-)