More joyous border crossings

Yesterday we wandered around and took in a couple of museums and although Mongolia was an interesting place we are glad to be moving on. This morning we had an early start again as our train to Beijing was at 8:05am. This time we were sharing a cabin with 2 French ladies; Sophie and Sylvie from Rouen of all places!

At 7.30pm we arrived at the Mongolian border. More customs forms were distributed and once again our passports were literally snatched away by a very humourless customs officer. At this point the carriage attendants came around demanding a $1 service charge for the use of the hot water; on no other train have we been asked this and we later learned that this is actually a bit of a scam and there is no obligation to pay it. However, they were very adamant and we were at a border crossing so reluctantly everyone paid up. Not a bad earner considering there are about 40 people per carriage and perhaps 14 or so carriages.

The 2 French women were actually escorted off the train by the customs officials. Apparently they had overstayed their visa by 2 days which is actually a bit silly; but they said it was a bit if an intimidating ordeal and the guards said normally they would be fined $200 each but as they were together they would fine them the bargain price of $300! I'm not sure these were their exact words but the women only had $15 on their person and after 4 serious sounding telephone conversations and a letter they had to write in English explaining why they had overstayed, the guards let them go. We approached the Chinese border at Erlian where the whole train was taken into a shed and the carriages split up as the 'bogies' were changed. Like with Poland / Russia, Chinese trains run on different gauges than Mongolian and Russian trains. Finally, 6 hours after initially stopping we set off into China.