Day 6 - Wednesday, Sept 18 - Beijing to Zamin Uud, Mongolia

We are taking a Chinese train to the Mongolian border. The gauge of the Chinese and Mongolian/Russian train tracks are different so one needs to change trains at the border. So much for rocking gently to sleep on the train. The seat/bed is like a yoga mat on a wooden plank, very “firm”. The tracks are not very smooth so there is considerable rocking back and forth with a fair amount of noise. I didn’t get much sleep. The train car has a “squat” toilet on one end and a “regular” toilet on the other end. There is a wash room with three sinks.

We woke to a bright sunny day. The landscape looks fairly similar to parts of the southwest US, rolling grasslands. We did pass fields of sunflowers, corn and wheat were the soil looked good but the soil along the train generally looks pretty sandy. There have been large flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and some horses. In the distance we’ve seen many wind turbines for generating power.

Breakfast was served in the dining car at tables of 4. We had fried eggs, fortunately hot, and some kind of sausages that were cold. We also had a banana, bread, coffee, OJ and tea.

Around noon the train arrived in Erlian, the last stop on the Chinese train in Erlian which is close to the Mongolian border. We took a bus to a restaurant for lunch where we had our last sumptuous Chinese meal - there is always so much food left, I feel bad about it.

Lunch in Erlian

After lunch we took a bus to the Chinese customs and immigration station, then another bus to the Mongolian customs immigration station and then another bus to the train station in Zamin Uud where we got on the "Tzars Gold Train". This is a replica of the train that would have been used by the Tzar and subsequently by Stalin and other officials. We booked a compartment that includes a very efficient bathroom with a shower so we wouldn't have to go out in the middle of the night to a bathroom at the end of the car. The compartment has a long bench on one side, a small table by the window and a small bench on the other side. During dinner, the attendants pull down an upper bunk that is recessed into the wall and make the beds. A ladder in the closet lets one get into the upper bunk.

Before dinner, there was a performance by two Mongolian musicians, playing traditional horse-head fiddles and doing "throat" singing. The fiddle only has two strings which would have traditionally used horsehair strings and bow but now the strings are synthetic. The fingering looks complicated as the strings are not pressed against the neck as with a violin or guitar. Throat singing is impossible to describe and I can't figure out how it is done. This is a Youtube video that has the singing: Throat singing.

Mongolian throat singers

We had dinner on the train, starting with typical raw fish from Siberia, including Salmon, Salmon caviar, a white fish I couldn't identify and a dried fish like a sardine. The main coarse was rice, a corn/cauliflower mix and roast pork with gravy. There was a kind of strudel for dessert.

We get good exercise walking from our compartment in car 3 to the dining car which takes 600 steps and goes through 44 doors that have to be opened and closed.

The train pulled out of the station around 8:30 and we went to bed around 10:30 to the rocking of the train.