As we decided to end the journey in Beijing rather than Vladivostok we had to board the Trans Mongolian Railroad in Irkutsk for a two day journey to the capital of Mongolia. We were all surprised just how much rougher it was travelling on the new system - the train was constantly braking and stopping. It showed us just how smooth it had been on the Russian system. Other than that the carriage wasn't much different from the Russian train but the restaurant was spectacularly different as you can see in this photograph.

We had been warned that the border crossing could be very difficult with stories about guards hassling passengers about undeclared currency and toilets locked for hours on end. As none of us had filled in the correct form at St Petersburg Airport we were advised to secrete the US $$$ and extra roubles on our bodies - so for 7 hours we wandered around looking like Michelin Men or limping around with our shoes stuffed full of money. Most of us had quite a bit of cash as we'd been advised that it is difficult to cash Traveller Cheques or access ATM's outside SP or Moscow. The other piece of advice is to make sure that bank notes are in pristine condition - even the slightest crease could see the note being rejected by the cashier. And the final advice make sure that you get the Currency Form stamped when you enter Russia - I had filled it out but I couldn't get any official of sign it in St Petersburg.

The whole process took about 7 very boring hours just waiting, waiting, waiting for the Russian guards to check over the train, then Russian customs to check us over - at one stage the train vanished altogether!!!! Our run of warm weather was continuing so it was very hot and stuffy in the carriages. Finally they let us out onto the platform - Jenny and I decided to have a picnic there and then!! There was nothing else to do. After 5 hours or so the Russians signed off on the train .... then we had another hour or so of Mongolian guards checking out the carriages. Very Tedious despite the fact that both rail systems use the Soviet guage, so no bogie-changing is required - a feature of the Mongolian-China crossing ... spare us!!!