Last night Penny got a message from Anna the lady we met in Irkutsk, she had just arrived in Beijing and on the same carriage as her was Judge Rinder (Rob) with his traveling partner. He asked her to pass on his best wishes to both Penny and I. She had some bad news, the taxi at the train station, the driver put her bags in the boot and he drove off and left her stranded with only her ruck sack which had here passport and credit cards. She could not call the embassy or the insurance company as it was the first. I would be totally pissed off and an inconvenience. Penny and I discussed this incident and now she will get in the taxi first whilst I load the bags in the boot and when at our destination she will stay in the taxi until I give her the okay to get out.
10:30 headed out to the National History Museum and the ground was covered in a light dusting of snow and it was a warm – 16 C, I am not bullshitting when you have experienced over – 50 C this is warm. An interesting museum when communism took over in 1921 the illiteracy was terrible 2 to 3% of the people could read and write and in the late 1990 when communism was replaced by democracy 96% of people could read and write. Today, more than half of Mongolians live in Yurts or Gers, including about 61% in the capital of Ulaanbaatar and 90% of the rural population.
Got some T shirts and decided to have a light snack as we are dining at a Mongolian restaurant tonight. Decided on a Korean restaurant and I picked a pork dish and Penny another meat dish. Bloody hell they bought the food out it was a banquet and we only wanted a light snack. There was soup each rice and 6 other bowls with different foods. Came out of there bloated and had to walk it off.
Tried to find the Bogd Khan Winter Palace but gave up after a while and came across these vintage trains, train buffs would have been ecstatic. So we decided to head to Choijin Lama Temple where we tried to get into the other day. On the way saw these 3 mature local ladies chatting away in the sun, I asked if I could take a photo of them and thanked them very much. The Temple did not take credit cards for entrance fees and I was a little short on the cash but she let us in which was nice of her. It was interesting to visit and we will see many more when in Tibet.
Penny is packing I did mine yesterday, we depart the hotel at 06:30 train leaves at 07:30 to Beijing. Be passing through the Gobi desert which will be interesting. Have to go through Mongolian and then Chinese customs and immigration. Have been told in China some times you have to get off the train as they process you like that. Again could take up to 3 hours. We do not know if there is a restaurant on the train so we will stock up with the usual train junk food. We arrive in Beijing the next day at 14:30. Will try and get all our booked train tickets when we arrive at the station. There is 8 journeys so far.
Maurice's Travel 