Trans-Mongolian

The very name “Trans-Mongolian Railway” stirs something inside me. It evokes adventure, the unknown, long journeys over land. In reality, of course, it’s just a train.  We rolled out of the Beijing Railway Station right on time at 11:20 am. 

This experience is quite different from some other train travel I’ve done. The majority of the passengers are tourists, and given that the most common travel language is English, they all speak it. There was an immediate commencement of greetings and conversation, which has ebbed and flowed since we started. I had dinner with two other travelers, one of them my compartment mate, and the other a passenger from the next car who paused on his way back to his car, and ended up staying for hours. While waiting at the station I met Laizsu and Tony, who are from the UK, and they came by to visit. I had expected solitary time on this train but that seems unlikely now.

As we got past the outskirts of Beijing, we went into hills and small mountains with a river running alongside for a while. Innumerable tunnels, steep rocky formations and narrow valleys began to give way to patches of sunflowers, fields of corn, and what appears to be grapes. Later as the land flattened, it seemed that every available inch had been planted- most in corn, which seems odd to me (maybe for export?), but I saw amaranth, cabbages, onion and other crops too. Sometimes it would be a big field of corn with a small square planted in something else right in the middle of the field, almost a secret patch that was only visible from the high vantage point of the train.

From time to time there would be someone working in their garden plot, or pulling a cart down a dirt path, and then the next thing, there’d be high towering buildings seemingly out of nowhere, but not really-just the perspective from the train.

We’re due to be at the Mongolian border in the next half hour, and we’re scheduled to spend 191 minutes in Erlian on the Chinese side and 75 minutes in Zamyn Uud on the Mongolian side. I know part of the time will be spent switching out the undercarriage because the rail gauge changes here. When I went through this before, we had to stay on the train and I never could tell when the change happened, it was so smooth. One of my dinner mates, Rob, thinks we’ll be able to get off and walk around the town, but I have my doubts about that. I’ll know soon.

Much drama on this border crossing. Four westerners were taken off the train here at the border, no idea why. A Chinese woman who had apparently tried to sneak through was removed. And a man from Malaysia traveling in this car was taken inside, his fate remains undetermined. The plight of our migrant spirit continues.