Day 394 - M O N G O L I A ('nuff said)

We woke up this morning at the border town of Erlian, expecting to have immigration done within a couple of hours and be on our way to Mongolia. However, it was not until 10 hours later that we would get back on the rails. In the meantime we wandered around town, not finding much to occupy ourselves, so hung around the train tracks. Here we got to watch as the train was lifted onto new wheels - as China and Mongolia have different size tracks. It was kind of crazy being in this work area where everyone apart from a few travellers looking on had hard hats on - OSH would have a heart attack! At the same time we were waiting for the Trans-Mongolian and its carriages to come and connect on with us. The main annoying factor about today was the fact that the train toilets were closed, and the station for some stupid reason was closed. Luckily there were a few bushes around ...
Finally at 4pm we rolled for about half an hour over the border, where we would stop for another 5 or so hours!! But this time is wasn't so bad, as we were in a new country with new faces and new things to see. In this town we did a black market money exchange in order to buy some water and got our first taste of spending in the Mongolia currency.
The great thing about being stuck hangning aorund all day was that we got to talk to some other travellers also coming into Mongolia and hear about their plans. By 10.30pm we started rolling towards Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia - but we wouldn't arrive for another 12 hours.

Adlibing the Trans-Mongolian.