30.05.2011 – 30.05.2011  20 °C

Boarded the train about 9.30pm and were lucky enough to go to sleep quite quickly. Border crossing started at about 5am the next morning……. We didn’t get through the border and into Russia til mid morning then we turned around and waited til after 4pm til we finished the border crossing at Russia… Holy god, we moved only 21km (border crossing space) in over 11 hours.. It must be the slowest border crossing in the world!!

From what we could work out, the Mongolian customs people didn’t start work til 9am so we had to wait til they started work before they would check our passports. It took about an hour and half and then we were off again to Russia… and then we sat and waited again…..

All we could work out on the Russian side was that I think we were waiting for another train to join with our carriage to continue on.. not sure how accurate either of our guesses were but that was the best we could come up with..

Most of the day was spent sleeping, chatting or eating.. Its really funny but our whole life revolves around eating, sleeping and going to the loo when you are on the trains… The loo is important because they are closed for half an hour before all train station stops… Therefore there is only a small window every day when you can pee… Its hilarious (and often the butt of jokes) but we do actually monitor the time and pee when the preverbial window is open!!!! So for the 11hours that we were crossing the border we were unable to pee on the train.. we had to wait til our passports had been checked and then we could go onto the platform and pay for the privildge… I guess I’d better get used to it cause that’s just what you do in all of Russia and some of eastern europe!!!

Food is our other main issue.. what are we going to eat and when.. (goes hand in hand with the loo times).. We have had three meals on the train this time around.. Brekky was some yummy pastries we took on the train from Ulaanbataar with a cup of black tea.. Yep that’s right I’ve converted to black tea from white coffee with sugar.. Main reason is you cannot physically buy any decent coffee anywhere in China or Mongolia and I have no way to keep milk cold! As I can’t abide black coffee (and the instant is aweful here) I’ve swapped to weak black tea.

Lunch today was eaten at a cafe at the Russian border crossing.. Cafe is spelt in Russian ‘cape’ so easy to pick a cafe out on the street. Lunch consisted of a Borscht soup (beetroot, ham, potato and cabbage soup).. Really good.. and some meat dumplings with sour cream (also really good).

Dinner was two minute noodles and some biscuits… 2 min noodles are becoming our staple on board the trains… Unfortunately there isn’t much of an option when you don’t have any cooking facilities or dining car…

We’ll get off the train late tonight around 10.30pm and head to our hotel in Ulan Ude.