I am startled out of bed by my alarm, which goes off at 5am, I groan as I realise I have to get all my passengers to Beijing central railway and onto the train. I get up and pack the rest of my stuff and head down to the reception, to my relief the transfer bus, driver and some of the passengers are already waiting for me. I get the driver to open the mini bus and start getting the bags loaded. Everyone is on time and we get away at 6:30am on the button.

We get to the station and there is a little way to walk and the entrance has changed from last year, no one complains or makes snide comments about me not knowing what I'm doing….everyone on this tour is up for the adventure. I get everyone though security and into the station, I leave all the passengers out of the way and go off to find the waiting room. I find it with no difficulty and come back and collect them. I set myself up and watch all the bags so they can get some last minute supplies, then I go and get myself a McDonalds breakfast, before one and half days or two minute noodles….people tease me good naturedly about my eating habits.

It is now time to board the train, I make my group all bunch up together so that the locals do not push in and get a free ride on my group ticket. I have given everyone a birth number in advance, so boarding should be a smooth as possible, it is. We get into our carriage and settled in plenty of time, everyone, then proceeds back out onto the platform to get pictures in front of the train. People still in the carriage, photo bomb from behind the windows, me included. I realise, how much this group has lifted my spirits, compared with how I was feeling about my job two days ago. They are all good natured, have all booked an appropriate tour for themselves, don't have unreasonable expectations and are generally just a fun group of people.

We have a good train for taking photos, the windows pull right down, which means we can get awesome shots of the train going around corners…unfortunately, though it is a Chinese train and on the messy/dirty side. We arrive at the border at around 8pm and the Chinese officials get on, one asks Paul if we are a group and Paul says yes….I shudder knowing what is coming. Take me to your leader, the Chinese official says. Even in my panic I giggle at the cheesy line the man has no idea he has just uttered and the fact that I am in fact, said leader. I get out of my cabin and come to see what the problem is and the guy wants some kind of letter, which of course I don't have and have no idea what he is talking about.

After a while, Paul and I defuse the situation by saying we are not a tour group, just a large group travelling together and I've been in charge of booking everything. They buy this no questions asked as I think they just want to get on with things. We are shunted across the border for the changing of the bogeys, which goes smoothly and all the passengers are fascinated and take photos. They have let us keep the windows open, which doesn't normally happen, so even I get some good photos to add to my collection. We all chat about how silly the process of changing the train wheels to a different rail gauge is, and that it would be faster to just get everyone to change to another train.. guess they have never really thought this through.

After the bogey changing we get to the Mongolian border station and I get two local bunk mates, Chinese guys who are obviously sick. This makes me nervous as there is a serious outbreak of Avian flu in northern China, which is now where the train is. The Mongolians seem nervous about it because they are bringing around quarantine forms asking people if they have experienced any of ten symptoms listed, my roomies tick every box and I am now really worried about getting sick. I fill out my form and when I come to the question, have you been in contact with sick people in the last seven days question I mutter to myself, not until I got on this train.

I resign myself to the fact that once the Mongolian quarantine officials see how sick these guys are and the fact that they have ticked all the boxes, not wanting to spread the outbreak of deadly bird flu into their country, they will remove them from the train. Unfortunately, I'm wrong and they just collect the forms and ignore the problem. Well I'm not going to ignore it and venture into the cabin next door which holds four of my passengers, Dane & Nat from Sydney, Maria from Wellington and Andrea from Switzerland and ask them if they mind if I sleep on their floor. Dane looks at me like I'm mad, until I explain the situation and then tells me of course its ok if I sleep on the floor.

I go back to my assigned cabin to retrieve my valuables and find the guys coughing with no hands over their mouths, blowing their noses everywhere (with no tissue) and spitting all over the floor. Mate, these guys have personal habbits that would make a monkey blush, I remark to Dane when I sent myself up in his cabin, we have a bit of a laugh at that. Nat passes me down Teddy who has been camped up on their table for the duration of the journey, after telling me I had forgot something. I curl up with Teddy on the uncomfortable train floor and attempt to sleep...