With a 35-hour train ride ahead of us and having had such an eventful arrival into Russia, we both braced ourselves for our first international border crossing via train. We had both read many horror stories in our guide books and have heard less than encouraging reports from fellow travelers, so we certainly did not expect our final ride in Russia to go smoothly.
There were huge crowds waiting at Irkutsk railway station, and piles upon piles of bags, boxes, cases, and hastily wrapped parcels all of which seemed to be waiting for our train. Once the platform was announced there was a huge rush to the carriages, everyone was anxious to secure the precious space for their luggage, it was certainly a case of 'everyone for themselves'.
Amongst the locals and traveling vendors were a handful of tourists also trying to board the train. All of us tourists seemed to head for the same two carriages of the twenty-carriage train, at first we thought this was purely an effort to group the foreigners to together for the border-crossing; it was only later when the arrived at the final stop in Russia that we realized that it was only our two 'foreigner carriages' making the rest of the journey into Mongolia.
The border crossing on the Russian side took six hours, 5 and a half hours of which involved us sitting on the platform staring at our now very short train, waiting for the immigration officers to show up and stamp our passports. Luckily, we shared the platform with a small shop, a handful of trees, and some fellow backpackers and we were able to spend our last rubles purchasing cold drinks.
An hour after the train departed its final stop in Russia, we arrived at the Mongolian border. Our stop here was four hours, three and a half hours of which was spent eating our dinner (noodles of course) on the steps of the railway station waiting for more carriages to be fitted to the train. The contrast between these neighboring countries was immediately apparent. The Mongolian side was alive with the hustle and bustle of street traders and local travelers. Young children and stray dogs ran in and out of the crowds both begging for food - a sight the police in Russia would not have tolerated.
We arrived in Ulaan Baatar (capital of Mongolia) at six o'clock in the morning with no local currency and no place to stay. We briefly said goodbye to the backpackers we had befriended on the train having agreed to rendez-vous with them later in the evening at a a well-known travelers cafe. After a brief pause to orientate ourselves to the new country that surrounded us with its new sights, smells and sounds; we soon secured a room for the next few nights and took a much-needed shower!!
NB: Unfortunately our photos of the border-crossing and the train were corrupted in an internet cafe when we tried to upload them :-(
