China post #15 - Farewell to Mongolia

Back to UB for 2 nights and to have a proper look at the place. Seemed a lot dirtier, dustier and disorganised than the first time. Kho met up with us in Modern Nomads for lunch and she had lots of gifts, fair play. We had to replace her lucky leprachaun which she unluckily lost. One thing about Mongolia that's changed since becoming less communist (they are still the ruling party) is that it's history has been rewritten and national heroes are OK to hold in high esteem again. The biggest u-turn has been with Chingiss Khan, who seemingly wasn't such a bloodthirsty savage and was into diplomacy rather than war - will George B have the same said about him in 800 years time. So now practically everything is named after this re-discovered national icon who is has a gigantic image on a hill facing UB - vodka, beer, the airport and yes, even the Irish Pub in UB!

Back on the train, we were sharing with 2 mongolian girls who didn't say much until 2 english lads - Jazz and Steve starting sniffing around our cabin. Anyway, we crossed the Gobi desert and as it got more and more arid I was glad we hadn't gone on the camel trek across it.

We eventually reached the Chinese border on the 2nd night and were actually on the train as they changed the boggies because China has the normal track gauge whereas Mongolia has the non-standard Russian guage ... you can see where old loyalties were. The Chinese welcomed us with solemn marching music over the tannoys as the train pulled away from the platform heading for Beijing.