Excited, nervous and anxious we woke up at 6:30am and were at the border zone at 7:45. Well, we had been expecting a bit of a queue, but not so many taxis! And then we joined the queue with the taxis. The first time that we have been made to queue, as tourists. Thomas and Verena met us at the border zone which opened at 8am (although the actual border didn't open until 9am) and while the men stayed in the queue, not allowing any space between them and the cars in front for fear of queue jumpers, we went to the small office to find "THE MANIFEST". This document is essential for crossing the border, although we had never heard of it before! Luckily for us, Thomas and Verena had, and so we knew of it.

So in the office at 8:30, there were no staff. At 9:30, there were no staff… by 9:50 the Manifest Man was not at his desk, so we enlisted a local lady to call the number on the print out. She told me he was on the way. At 10am we asked the tax man, who we had to pay 25USD each for an apparent China road tax, and he also said he was on the way and sounded like he was walking. And then at 10:20 he appeared. We got our Manifests - 3 copies required; 1 for Mongolian Customs, 1 for Chinese Customs, and 1 for us.

Finally, with the Manifest in hand we went into the border zone. And fairly quickly were through, with the Customs officer saying "Go to China!" Excellent! The immigration desks were "manned" by a heavily pregnant lady and a young man. While the pregnant lady got through 7 immigration forms and visa exit stamps the young man was questioning Verena on the difference between Deutschland and Germany! I don't think many foreigners come through here…

We drove the 1 km through No Man's Land, through the disinfectant wash and to the next queue at the China gate. We were halted at the gate (the China side was closed for lunch). When it opened we watched slowly as the cars were allowed through, and a very officious young officer made sure no one jumped the queue… he had quite a funny way of staring people down, or waving them through until the last minute and turning them around! Unfortunately, we were also told to pull over. After about 20 minutes our tour guide met us at the gate! Ah, problems… we did not do all we were supposed to. He referred to a telephone call from Mongolian Immigration to Chinese Immigration. We had never been informed of this required phone call. Hmmm… so what is the solution? Well, we have to go back to the Mongolian Immigration and get them to call this number… ok… foolish us we did as we were asked. No, the angry English-speaking Customs lady said. What is your problem? Immigration ok, visa stamps ok, manifest ok, so what is your problem? She stuck her hand in our bag of caramels and told us to go back to the Chinese. No luck there then…

Not knowing what to do, we drove back to the China gate and relayed this to our guide. Not good enough, so he came with us to get it done… O dear… what a bad idea…

Myself and the guide went to the Mongolian gate, where a customs guard accompanied us to the immigration office. The immigration officers did make this phone call, but then started to question our guide about his passport; where was it? Where was his visa for Mongolia? Suddenly 4 large Immigration customs officials filtered into the little office. Grabbing at the guides shoulder and neck they tried to pull him out of the office. He in turn grabbed onto me and would not listen to me saying "No, he is my China guide, he has to come with me!"

They took us upstairs into another office, with more officials and they talked amongst themselves, in Mongolian, and we had no idea what was happening. A lady began taking down our information and I began to think we were being arrested! Eventually the English-speaking customs lady came into the office - and how glad was I to see her!? She did translate, although when she said "he can go back with you to China" it was a false positive… she just couldn't pronounce "can't"! I went out to let Fintan know what was happening, he had stayed in the car outside the gate in No Man's Land and I didn't want him being involved, just in case he had to get me out of a Mongolian cell later on!

I went back inside to wait for our guide to be released. After about another hour, he came out and told me to go to the China gate… no, you can wait at the Mongolian gate (with puppy dog scared and pleading eyes). No, definitely go to the China gate… Ok… so Fintan and I go back to the China gate… In the meantime, Verena and Thomas were allowed into the China border zone. We waited for about 10 minutes and then their guide came to the gate and told us he'd been in touch with our guide and we have to enter China now.

We drove around and parked behind Thomas and Verena… they had not seen their guide, and thought he was with us; I thought he was with them! So we waited… eventually he came out to usher us through the wrong side of immigration. We had to walk passed the guards to queue on the correct side, then drivers first we were stamped into China! All the while we were surrounded by a few officials - Fintan noticed they had 3 stripes… apparently the top brass was getting us through!

Fintan went out with the car to go through the usual customs business… although I had heard in China this involves x-raying the car and all our belongings. This didn't happen - they had the wrong paperwork for us and said we were entering on the wrong date!! Disaster. The guard told Fintan to wait with the vehicle until he checked with his superior, but we may be turned away from the border! After a while, another man came up to them and gestured them to follow him - out of customs and into China!!

We arrived into Erenhot at 5:30pm after a long and stressful and generally unpleasant day. Verena and Thomas were furious with their guide for not coming out to introduce himself, or assist them through the border. I was a wreck from the afternoon with Mongolian Immigration, and Fintan was just relieved to be in China I think.