Ulaan Batur to Beijing

In Ulaan Batur the day broke cold but clear. I gathered my bags and prepared myself for the trip to Beijing.

At the station, the train had not yet arrived. People milled about in the terminal to keep warm. Workers swept the platform.

As the train arrived, the crowds moved with the train, following their car numbers. I walked up to the second car and settled myself in my cabin. A young Mongolian couple laden with luggage appeared. They filled the space below one of the beds, they stuffed their daypacks into the upper compartments. The conductor came to take our tickets and we were off. Passengers lined the aisles to wave to their friends and family or take a last look at the station. The couple from my compartment waved to a group of people. One man followed the train, looking up and waving to them until we had left the station.

The city gave way to the endless plains. I asked the conductor when the next stop was. He told me it would be at noon. He said there were only two station stops in Mongolia. There wasn't much out there.

We moved further from the capital towards Beijing. The landscape remained desolate. Signalmen would stand in the middle of nowhere besides the motorcycles they had to ride to get to their posts. Occasionally sheep or horses would dot the plains. The rolling hills gave way to more plains.

My compartment mates turned out to be Mongolian students from Ulaan Batur studying in Istanbul. They are no direct flights from Ulaan Batur and so they were en route to Beijing to catch a flight from there. Flying to Beijing was expensive, and O—'s mother was afraid of her flying out of Ulaan Batur.

They chatted en route. She was energetic and excited; he was taciturn. They reminded me of the couple in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train.

We rode on. At the border, Mongolian officials collected our passports and the train moved back from the station towards a train shed. There, each of the cars was lifted off of their wheel bases so that the bogeys could be changed. The gauge of track differed between China and Mongolia and so all trains had to go through the process of changing their wheels at the border. It was fascinating to watch the workers go about the process.

Back at the station, officials walked through the train distributing passports. On the other side of the border, Chinese officials repeated the process. Then we had 20 minutes to use up our remaining Monglian money at the duty free store. We left the station at one in the morning. Looking out the window I saw a building lined with blinking neon. I knew I was in China.

When I woke up the landscape had changed dramatically. Fields were cultivated. Trees ran alongside the train where only telephone poles had stood. Buildings crowded out the landscape. We had descended from the steppes and entered China.

The carriage slowly woke up, but soon people lined the aisles, watching the mountains and river pass by the window. I asked the conductor if we could see the Great Wall coming in. Looking at the fog, he said no.

The Beijing train station was a crush of people looking for the exit. In front people looked to find their friends or rushed to leave the area. I asked where I could make a phone call and was directed to the west side of the plaza. A man pushed in front of me. I thrust my number at the attendant. The man asked what my hurry was. I told him I was there first. He backed down.

The attendant dialed the number and I asked for Ed in Chinese. When he answered I switched to English and everyone turned to stare. He was in front of the station, among the throng. We decided to meet in front of KFC.

He emerged from the crowd and we embraced. I smiled and almost laughed with joy. I had arrived in Beijing, the culmination of the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian train trip from Moscow. I had spent some 140 hours on a train. I had traveled through three countries and five time zones. I had said hello and goodbye to people in three languages. I was ready to eat.
Posted by eku at October 4, 2008 10:06 PM