3rd & 4th Ulaanbaatar to Beijing

5.30am wake up and out the door at 6.30am after saying farewell to Belinda. We boarded our last train for this trip for the 30 hr journey to Beijing. We could not believe our luck with the train, we had been told to expect the quality of the trains to deteriorate but this one was still very good. We even had a power point in our cabin so we had no problems using the PC on the train. We shared the cabin with Jude and John again. We said goodbye to UB and quickly left behind the buildings of the city and surrounds to have the scenery replaced by grassy fields. The trip was pretty and winding to start with as the tracks hugged the mountain side. We were in the first carriage and you can see the last carriages of the train in this picture. We both walked up to the dining car with James and had a drink while James ate lunch. It was very bright and clean and the food was good. Our first stop was Choir a town next to an old Soviet air base, with boring square buildings. It was hot and dusty during this 10 minute stop. Back on board we continued going through the Gobi desert with small green grassy vegetation giving way to gravel/stone lands. Having said that there was still small amounts of vegetation most of the way. The track for this section of the journey was mostly straight with great view over the rolling hills. At our second stop Sainshand we took some photos of mechanics doing some running repairs on the wheels.   We had a lovely gourmet dinner of noodles, tinned corn and tinned sausages. Between 8pm and 1am we crossed the boarder into China. We had to stay on board while they changed the bogies to a narrower gauge set. It was quite interesting to watch.  Catriona really liked the safety gear they were wearing. The lady in this picture has a spanner and she was under the train using it just before we took this picture.

We woke around 8am with the scenery having changed remarkably. We traveled through rural communities and agricultural land with people working in the fields and then into large towns/cities and industrial areas.