"Groovy"


There was a day 7 on the train.

Confused the hell out of us, as the journey only takes 5 days and 20 hours, but there you are.

Since the JWs got off the train we were blessed as nobody got on in their place, so we were really living the high life. We were so excited with everything that we couldn't even decide which bed to sleep in...

Although the night trip through the Gobi Desert had filled the cabin with sand, but that was fine and dandy.

Last night at the Chinese border they hoisted our car up into the air, while we were in it, and rather ingeniously changed the wheels. China has wider train tracks than Russia and Mongolia, as they like to do their own thing. Quite a unique experience.

We were then given free tickets for breakfast AND lunch by the nice Chinese people. I forgot to mention earlier that at the Russian border the Russian restaurant car went away and was replaced by a Mongolian restaurant car, which was several thousand times better but a rip off. Then at the Chinese border it vanished to be replaced by a Chinese restaurant car, and the Chinese wanted to give us free food!!

Bless them.

Unfortunately when we went down for lunch the queue to get the free food made us realise that we should really have started waiting at breakfast - no such thing as a free lunch, it appears. Vinny had the free breakfast though - I was asleep in my very own sandcastle.

Anyway, soon enough we were in Beijing, and the whole thing was over. We wondered out of the station, tried and failed to get a taxi to our hostel (we had booked into the same hostel Bruce Cambell was planning on being at around the same time), and decided to walk.

The walk started well, although it was rather humid. After ten minutes Vinny asked a passer by if we were where we thought we were on the map and he happily smiled and said yes. Ten minutes later we were starting to lose faith so we asked someone else and we were indeed in the right place.

Ten minutes after that we realised we had taken the wrong turn out of the train station and had been walking in the exact opposite direction all this time.

We found a taxi.

On arrival at the hostel, which was clean, cheap and big, we both had the biggest shower in the entire world, and then went down to the bar for a well earned beer. It was around 6 in the evening at this point, Beijiing time (probably).

Amusingly enough we bumped into a Swedish girl, Annika, who had been on the train with us and was also staying at the hostel. She joined us for a beverage as we discussed the last six days of our lives.

It was agreed that although the train was a great experience, and not nearly as horrible as it could have been, it probably wouldn't be worth doing just for the sake of the journey. If you didn't want to get from Moscow to Beijing then you'd be much better off not bothering. The highlights were looking out of the window through Mongolia and China, where the views were fantastic. Also it made all of us want to go back and visit Mongolia properly, so we'd recommend very much flying to Ulaan Baator, spending time in Mongolia, then getting the train for a day and a half through the fantastic scenery to Beijing, then hanging out there for a while.

We didn't really get any deeper than that, because at that point a voice said:

"There you w***ers are!"


It was Bruce Cambell.