Mongolia - where to go on a Chinese public holiday

The train about to leave Beijing

The Chinese National Holiday was upon us.  Cue a week on holidays and millions of Chinese traveling around the country.  With no work to do, there was no point staying in Bejing so I decided to go somewhere for the week.  But where?... anywhere in China would be tough, with train and plane tickets being both expensive and selling out fast.  How about that neighbour to the north who I know nothing about... Mongolia?

It turns out that Mongolia was the perfect destination to visit during the National Holiday.  In the week of public holidays I was able to travel by train from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar (UB), manage a few days in Gobi Desert and explore some of the nature just outside the nation's capital before flying back to Beijing.

I left for Mongolia the day before the National Holiday started, supposedly the peak travel day. The Beijing Railway Station was fairly busy as expected.  However, when I got on train 23 to UB I noticed something strange.  The crowds were gone.  In fact on my train carriage was only myself and my travel companion.  There I was worried about having to share my train berth with others, when I realised I wouldn't even need to share the rest of the carriage.  After exploring the train briefly, I found that there were 14 passengers on a train with 12 carriages. Seems like Mongolia was the right destination after all.

The view along the way

The 19 hour train ride on an old Chinese train actually passed quite seamlessly.  The views from the windows were interesting enough ranging from wind farms, to picturesque hills, to Chinese ghost cities, to agricultural fields and even industrial wastelands.  The restaurant cart was just as interesting with a humorous waitress and chef.  I was actually not bored the whole trip.  The most frustrating part was the border crossing to Mongolia, which takes hours.  First, on the China side (Erlian), you need to wait about 2 hours while the bogeys on the train are changed (the Mongols use the Russian gauge which is different to the Chinese folk).  This was an interesting experience.  First the train goes through a series of complicated manouvers before it gets jacked up by a number of giant jacks while the wheels are just swapped.  Pretty cool actually. The Mongolian side of the border also takes some time while the James Bond villain looking immigration officials complete with slimline briefcases do something with your passport.

But finally we made it through the overnight train ride, with about 2-3hours of sleep we arrived at Sainshand, our first stop, in the Gobi Desert.

More to come.

Erlian

The bogeys being changed

Sainshand