Day from hell, doesn't even begin to cover it..maybe double day from hell as I was up for nearly 24 hours due to office stupidity.

I started the day with my normal breakfast at Nicholai's place, followed by a quick look around at the markets and then doing my shopping for the train the Ulaanbaatar. I had my room until 10pm and basically spent the entire time fighting with the office about getting a transfer in Beijing.

I checked out of my room and went and sat in the common area until 1am when our transfer was due to arrive….or so I thought. I sent an email to our local operator about something else and they randomly sent me back an email saying that the time of the transfer had been changed because the office had not wanted to pay the late transfer surcharge. Wonderful! No one has told me this and now al the clients are now out doing activities and think we are being collected at 1am. I managed to run around and tell a few people about the transfer time change, who obviously put two and two together that the company wants to save money and are quite angry. I then have to retract my statement after our local operator (after being told this is the first I've heard of the change) send an email saying they will change it back to 1am at no charge to prevent a possible mess.

The transfer arrives at 1am and the passengers and I are exhausted from sitting around in the common room trying to kill 3 hours. We pile into the van and I give Nicholai a hug goodbye telling him I will be back in two weeks. The transfer takes about one and a half hours which everyone me included basically sleeps through. We arrive at the station, which is deserted at 2am and have to sit in the waiting room for the remainder of the time before the train departs at 4:52am which is being cleaned and smells strongly of bleach. The passengers are justifiably furious, because the brochure states 20 nights' accommodation, and obviously a night partially spent in a common room at a chalet and partially in a train station, doesn't really count as a nights accommodation. There are no toilets and we are being hassled by drunks…..the fallout from this is going to be awesome. Not.