The internet (ha ha ha) says there is a bus going from Ulan Bator to China 4 times a day from the Dragon Bus Terminal 400 metres from the hotel. Hardly believing our luck, we walked to the terminal only to be greeted with astonishment by the officials who told us that no buses go to China from there. So we decided to go to the train station, having ascertained that there is one train a day leaving at 4.30 pm. There followed three pieces of luck. Firstly, a car was unloading some passengers and their luggage and Jennifer had the presence of mind to ask the driver if he was a taxi. He was. He took us to the train station which was virtually deserted and all the train info was in Mongolian. I noticed a European-looking man and asked if he spoke English. He was an Australian and had a Mongolian interpreter. They took us to the booking office and he enquired about trains to Zamin Uud. The third piece of luck was after the booking clerk had told us that there were no first class tickets left but the Australian managed to get us a cabin with just two beds in it. We waited for 6 hours until the train came and our little cabin was brilliant compared with the 24 ordinary carriages with over 2,000 passengers packed like sardines. We struggled our way through 15 carriages to the restaurant car, which was practically full of people, many of whom were drinking and were very drunk, laughing and guffawing very loudly. One very pleasant man sat opposite us and he spoke good English. He was an engineer at the Darkan copper mine. The landscape was rolling grassland dotted with the occasional little settlements of yurts with large flocks of sheep and goats and herds of horses. We had a good nights sleep until I woke up at 2.30 in the middle of the night and woke Jennifer to ask her the time. She fell asleep again immediately but I was kept awake by the infuriating habit of the train driver blasting his horn every few minutes for no apparent reason. The landscape had changed to flat semi-desert and the train got into Zaman Uud station on time at 07.30.
Zamin Uud railway station
The timetable in Mongolian with station piano
Mongolia’s first railway engine
Our train
Our train engine
Mongolian grassland
Our cabin