Another day on the train today. We left the hotel around 6am for a 7.30am departure from Ulan Bator. The route took us through the Gobi Desert and while a remote and desolate landscape, it nevertheless had a raw beauty about it. Despite being desert we saw quite a lot of animals including camels, horses, cattle herds and a local variety of deer. Slightly less attractive was the evidence of open-cast mining!
We managed to grab a WiFi connection at the Chinese border station of Erlian to write the first part of this. After being stamped out of Mongolia (just over an hour) we then had around a five hour stop while we were processed into China. We had to completely leave the train with all our baggage and waited in the station (after getting all the immigration checks) while they changed the bogies on the train.
The last part of the journey was spectacular. The train wound its way round the side of valleys and through tunnels and bridges on the way through the mountains. We went past a huge lake created by a hydro-electric development (Guanting Shuiku) and wound slowly past the dam. The scenery was intriguing with initially mainly agricultural vistas of paddy fields and glasshouses. This gradually gave way to more industrial scenery as we approached closer to Beijing. Watching people starting to till the fields and cows towing carts full of hay brought home to us the raw poverty of the rural areas.
We arrived in Beijing central station at 2.35pm and headed straight to the hotel. A swim and sauna was very welcome!