Mongolia is beautiful, sparse and endless - or so it seems from the train - as we pass through hours of endless plains. Occasionally a mountain or a Ger tent or some horses, yak or camels come into view but the majority is just emptiness. I eat an expensive lunch in the dining car, there’s something spectacular about eating lunch at 120km/h in the Gobi desert, far from civilisation I feel like I’m dining in the restaurant at the end of the universe.
Late evening comes at the Mongolian/Chinese border. We’ve been travelling all day through Mongolia and the Gobi Desert and we’re about to enter the third and final country of our Trans Siberian journey, we’ll be in Beijing by early afternoon the next day.
After an efficient and friendly customs search and passport check we’re rolled past the government building and saluting soldiers with patriotic music blasting from the tannoy system - one can only assume the national anthem of China - it’s all a very grand and surreal spectacle. The buildings give off a sense of grandeur and are surrounded by immaculately kept gardens, clearly a display of pride and wealth to the foreigners riding the train; and it’s almost entirely foreigners on this portion of the journey.
After some time the train is steered noisily into a warehouse where we’re about to witness a magnificent spectacle; the train is getting some new wheels! Each carriage is carefully lifted, passengers and all, so the old Russian-gauge wheels can be slid out and the new Chinese wheels can be attached. As things settle down we begin to drop off to sleep, it’s past midnight.
