As wr travelled towards the border, we felt that we truly on the Trans Mongolian which follows the well worn route of the ancient tea caravans that travelled from Moscow to Beijing in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Of course after leaving UB, we had to face another border crossing - this time between Mongolia and China. Most trains cross this border at night which guarantees that you won't get much sleep. So once again we had the hassle of waiting, waiting, waiting with no access to toilets or platforms. At least the customs officials were a bit more relaxed this time.

After passing unscathed through the border, the train was then shunted into a bogie changing shed so that we could change to the Chinese gauge railway which is slightly narrower than the Russian/Mongolian railway. Train spotters will be disapppointed to know that I did not take any photos during this engineering feat! My apologies!

As the train travels south of UB the trees gradually disappear and the landscape becomes green-brown earth and nothing else. Apparently we stopped at a town called "Choir"! By this stage, however, we were into our 7th - 8th day on a train and we were all suffering from a strange form of train-lag - a strange meditative state where you are obsessed with opening windows and photographing the train going around a bend. What ever we were suffering from the towns dotted along the route looked bleak and ghostly in the harsh light. After Choir the train turned south and travelled through what you'd imagine the Gobi Desert to be ---- flat, arid and sparsely populated.

As I mentioned earlier the train going around a bend was one of the talking points of the day!

This was our final view of Mongolia with the bleak moon-like landscape continuing all the way to the Chinese border.