We decided to go first class to Ulaanbaatar on the train, it has a travel time of c32 hours including a stopping time of about 3-4 hours between the Chinese and Mongolian borders when the change the wheels over (the gauges are different between China and Mongolia) which takes place from about 10pm to 1am the following morning. To be honest we just didn’t feel like sharing the experience with strangers.

Ok, back to the start.

We had some issues with our plans, we had originally planned to catch the K23 train on a Saturday, as per the timetable available at the time.

About 2 months prior to us going, checking on all the websites, it became clear that the K23 train was no longer leaving on Saturdays. From 1 June 2019 it had moved to Tuesdays. That kind of changed our plans and meant that we were going to spend about a month in Mongolia, and we would be making full use of our 30 day Mongolian visa!

After looking at a few sites to purchase the train tickets we decided on Travel China Guide, as they had the best price including delivery to our hotel in China. It was really easy purchasing with them, they sent us confirmation for our visa, and upon arrival at the hotel we picked up the tickets that had been couriered there. All very smooth really.

When we had done a dry run the day before (at 10am), the number of people at Beijing station was a bit overwhelming. Therefore, although our tickets said to get to the station 40 minutes before departure we decided to try to get there an hour before departure.

It was a smooth run, we were slightly later than we wanted, but it proved no issue and we were watching a line form for the train with plenty of time to go to the loo.

We had read that our berth would have 2 beds, we would share a washroom with the compartment next door. What we actually found that we had our own private bathroom with shower and western toilet. Although a little tired it was truly luxurious (for a train).

Our carriage wasn’t full, so we met everyone during our time on the train, we had a Spanish couple with a baby (a surprisingly good baby – or the sound proofing was good), a Dutch backpacker (who was going to spend 2 weeks in Mongolia and then head home), and a retired British couple (79 and 80 years old) who now lived in Australia. He had been in the merchant navy and had retired at 53. Since then they had travelled the world, starting with 14 months in a campervan going around Europe, with their kayak and ski’s on the roof, the motorbike on the back and a set of nice clothes in the closet (in case they go somewhere nice for dinner). That’s the life!

Anyway, we had stocked up on what we thought would be enough food – 4 different pots of noodles, some cherries, biscuits and other snacky foods. We thought we would at least have dinner in the Chinese restaurant car.

Our online searching had stated that the restaurant car was to serve until 9pm. However, when we got there at 6pm we found out that it ceased serving at 7pm and had run out of food. Well there was about 10 plates of food left, and we were number 11 and 12. We were lucky to get two (unrefrigerated) beers.

It was a bit of a farce when we got to the restaurant car, people yelling (one American guy in particular who decided to abuse his tour guide too), and a very angry, stressed Chinese waitress. You had to laugh…

We had had noodles for lunch and therefore noodles for dinner too. Given the dinner on offer appeared to be egg and mushrooms with rice, we weren’t too disappointed with our noodles.

Luke had been wanting some enamel mugs since we left Australia, but I decided on plastic keep cups instead, much to Luke’s disappointment. At the hotel we stayed in there were some enamel mugs in our room. Luke had been eyeing up those cups, so we went and asked (via google translate) how much they would be to purchase.
The hotel staff gave them to us, which was nice, so we now have enamel mugs (with lids). These were great for the never-ending supply of boiling water.

We went through a massive storm just before the Chinese border and got some amazing views of both rainbows and lightning at the same time (of course I couldn’t get a picture of them both).

We got to the border at about 10pm and moved into the shed for the interesting process of changing the bogeys (wheels) on the train.

We had read that we would either be able to get out (but be locked out of the train for the entirety of the process) or stay in our room, but not be allowed to use the loo. As it turns out we were told to stay on the train, to stock up with hot water, but that we could use the loo.

The actual changing of the bogeys was really interesting they took each carriage, lifted it about 3 metres off the ground, undid the Chinese wheels and rolled in the Mongolian ones.

The only thing was the process (including all the border control stuff) started at 10pm, and we didn’t get our passports back from the Mongolian side and start to move again until about 3.20am.

The beds and pillows were hard but clean, and we slept until about 7.30am.

We decided as we didn’t have much luck with dinner in the restaurant car we would go and have breakfast. The restaurant car had changed and it was now a Mongolian car – complete with carved wood and archery paraphernalia. Breakfast itself was bread (not sweet), omelet and tea. So far so good, except it cost us the equivalent of $A45!!! I would have at least expected smashed avo for that much, apparently, we can get that in Ulaanbaatar (UB). Deciding not to go back for lunch we got some mutton dumplings from a Mongolian babushka at a random stop.

Anyway, the scenery over the whole trip was so interesting, from Chinese mountains, Chinese steppe, Mongolian steppe, Gobi desert (we kind of slept through that) and the lush grasslands around UB. Hopefully our photos give you a good hint.

We arrived into UB about 45 mins late to be met by our tour company’s agent and whisked off to our hotel via what seemed to be a very circuitous route.

Stage one, done.