Irkutsk, Russia-Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – 09/22 The Trans-Mongolian Train

(Michelle) So we are on the train again. When we tried to buy tickets in Platzkartny (3^rd class) there were none available, so we had to take Kupe (2^nd class). We also couldn’t get the same room as Bill and Liz, but we were in two rooms right next to each other. We are sharing our room with 2 Finnish Girls. This car, unlike the experience we had when we started the train trip, is completely filled with tourists. We had a great time though, because everyone was from different places and it was a good group of people. The Hungarians we saw camping on Olkhon Island were in our car as well. Pretty soon our Kupe (room) became the hangout for us, the Finnish girls, Bill and Liz and the Hungarians Circus Performers.

We are leaving the Buryat area – goodbye to the cool cemeteries with the blue fences and the prayer posts with ribbons. The scenery during the ride past Ulan Ude Russia until the Mongolian border was definitely the best scenery on this ride: Beautiful valleys, hills, trees, water, animals and sunlight. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much for pictures because the train windows were so dirty and they wouldn’t let us open them in this car.

(Picture notes, Bill and Liz filling out the immigration forms, the Finnish Girls we shared the Kupe with, and the one picture I have of the scenery – it doesn’t even come close to doing it justice).

The border crossing into Mongolia was one of the worst we’ve had yet. We had one break where we could get off the train, and then they took our passports. Once they took our passports, we had to stay on the train, but of course since we were at a station, the bathrooms were locked. The dumbasses that we our, we kept drinking beer like it was no thing. Five hours later, the pain… everyone was in a lot of pain with the bathroom wait (we’d only had a couple beers, but I’m sure part of it was a mind thing where you know you can’t go to the bathroom so you of course need to go so much more than you would have otherwise) . If that disease from Seinfeld – Uromysitsis – when you have to hold it for too long were truly a disease, we would all have it after that. Good Times.

(TJ) I can only remember the pain of having to use the bathroom and suspecting the carriage attendants were secretly laughing at all of us on the inside.