Part I - The Planning - Entering Mongolia (Travel Dream!)

The key is flexibility!

I've heard too many horror stories, and experienced a few too, so we really wanted to make the Chinese to Mongolia border crossing an enjoyable but painless one.  If I were to rate the desired experience on a scale, I'd put it "somewhere on the scale of nothing like Thailand to Vietnam" and "more adventurous than Vietnam to Cambodia" (which it seems we never wrote about).

Originally, we were to traverse the great Eurasian continent by train, from Beijing to Ulaanbataar to Irkutsk to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.  Timetables and our own deadlines dictated that we would have only spent 5 days in Ulaanbataaar, something with which we were always a little uncomfortable.  In a strange set of circumstances, what with the Russian visa development, [maybe] meeting Oliver in Helsinki, Christine in Dublin and having already purchased tickets to connect the two; AND the Great Chinese Firewall standing between us and a functioning PayPal account* (needed to buy Beijing-UB train tickets from CITS), we made the decision to spend the period of time between our Chinese visas expiring (late May) and our flight from Helsinki to Dublin (early July), in Mongolia.  The Russians [sort of] didn't want us, so this plan really was the only semi-logical one that had the bonus of allowing as much longer in Mongolia than originally planned.

While making our plans to get to Ulaanbataar, we realised that the "Trans-Mongolian" itself was a rather loose term that we could redefine to meet our own needs.  As it was a travel dream, we decided that as long as we actually saw some of Mongolia by train, we could still say we did the Trans-Mongolian, even if not from Beijing and even if not literally to cross the China/Mongolia border. 

Thanks to the amazing help of this wikitravel article and TripAdvisor contributors, we managed to get ourselves to Ulaanbataar from Beijing through a combination of public bus, metro, long-distance sleeper bus, dodgy hotel, jeep, train and a right-hand drive car (Mongolians have both left and right-hand drive, depending on whether they are Japanese or Russian cars!).

As far as booking trains through China, Mongolia and Russia goes, there is a lot of fear and a lot of misinformation (some of it intentional and some of it not).  The process is so different and so confusing that Lonely Planet even have a book dedicated to the Trans-Siberian Railway and how you navigate the fear and confusion.  We wanted to avoid some of the high prices charged by the likes of Real Russia and Vodka Train - although I am sure they do a great job of making it easier for you.  Besides the high prices, we never had a fixed address to have anything mailed to, which seemed a pre-requisite for these services. PLUS who doesn't love trying it the "independent" way?

Trains from Beijing to Ulaanbataar only leave once a week, on a Wednesday.  However, from Zamin-Uud, a tiny border town in Mongolia, they leave for Ulaanbataar daily, all we needed to do was get to the Mongolian border via long-distance bus. For inexplicable reasons, I don't think you can book the bus online or over the phone but with the help of TripAdvisor and the ever helpful "King Kong" and "Sharon" from 365 Inn (our Beijing hostel) we hatched a plan.  

The Plan

1. 27 May - Muxiyuan Long Distance Bus Station, Beijing, China

2. 27 May - overnight bus to Zamin-Uud, "Outer Mongolia" as the Chinese refer to the Mongolian People's Republic.  We were very desperate to ensure that we took a bus to Zamin-Uud and not to Erlian, the Chinese border town; our understanding was that border processing would be a lot easier if we could just stay on the bus (you cannot cross the Chinese/Mongolian border on foot).

3. 28 May - overnight train to Ulaanbataar train station.

4. 29 May - pickup from Sunpath Mongolia (one of THE GREATEST organisations we have come across on this trip).

For "The Execution" you will need to read Part II of this entry!  Stay tuned!

*In a horror story that is still not resolved, PayPal suspended access to both of our accounts due to "unusual activity", a situation we were not able to resolve even with 2 weeks in Japan (outside the Great Firewall) and meant that we were unable to pay for our train tickets from Beijing to Ulaanbataar online.  I highly recommend anyone planning to go on a trip like this, that you setup multiple PayPal accounts, just in case they arbitrarily decide to freeze your account.  Here is a link to a discussion about where this has had nasty consequences.

Say Ohm!

Having been burnt from an experience with a nasty dodgy taxi driver, I was more than content to spend a few days hanging out in the relative safety of Tim and Steph's District 2.  Hiding from the heat of the day in coffee shops, catching up on world news and some less than important things (like the ongoing Australian government leadership controversy).

But eventually there would come a time when this little traveller would actually need to see more of Ho Chi Minh City than the cool sanctuary of air-conditioned western coffee shops and smell aromas other than Italian coffee beans.

Traffic in Vietnam probably has more than its fair share of dedicated blog posts, so I'll leave it at the fact that there are 90 million people in Vietnam, and most of them get about my motorbike.  The streets are full, loud and dangerous for riders and pedestrians alike.  Of course, as most people get about by motorbike, it stands to reason that it is also one of the most cost-effective ways to get about.

Kat, having previously experienced both enjoyable and heart-stopping rides on the back of motorcycles in Vietnam on her 2008 trip, usually opted for the relatively safe taxi option for the half-hour journey to volunteering each day.  Safe, as long as you never opened your eyes or looked at where the taxi drivers' eyes were focused (usually on a mobile phone) - on this day, I rode with her, to see the orphanage, and explore the area.  For the first time since arrival, I finally put together my cheat sheet of Vietnamese words (1-10, please, thankyou, sorry) and was determined that to get home, this day would be the one in which I would take a xe om (pronounced "say ohm") and to be honest, a Buddhist mantra is probably desirable if not required for this activity.

Finding xe om drivers is usually not an issue of how, but more an issue of saying "yes".  Probably thousands of men spends their days dozing atop their parked motorbikes on street corners, always with a second helmet, waiting for a customer to approach.  Thousands more hound you at every turn, "motorbike?", "taxi?", "where you going?".  However, in the heat of the day (between 10 & 2) most people are already where they are going, so I caught my prospective driver napping.

Still nervous from the dodgy taxi incident, but determined to bring some local language into play, I made a cautious approach.  My prospect was one of two men in their late forties hanging out of the corner.  The first excitement lay in determining the actual destination.  Having prepared for this moment like a university exam, I was persistently trying to tell them that I wanted to go to "Dinh Độc Lập", but without the capability of forming complex Vietnamese sounds correctly, it came out as "din dock lap", which I think is probably wrong.  Mainly wrong, because we could only get universal agreement when I said "Reunification Palace".

With that issue sorted, next came the price.  As anything worthwhile, some healthy negotiation is both expected and necessary (don't hop on without agreement first).  This also hit a snag.  Capable only of counting to 6 from the top of my head (after all, it was only university exam-like preparation), negotiating amounts in the range of 50-70 000 dong became all to much for me to handle.  To the great mirth of my two prospects, many hand gestures and waves and we concluded on a price of 60 000VND.  They managed to work out which of them would drive me through some non-verbal queue I never witnessed, and as they helped me on with a helmet, they asked "American?, New Zealand?, Australia?"  Receiving a solid nod and a thumbs up at confirming my nationality and therefore passing some obscure test, we were off, as I tentatively pondered the clause on the insurance policy stating "under no circumstances are you covered in the event of a motorcycle accident".

From what I had read, your local xe om driver is a key to unlocking the city.  They know the back roads you would never go down yourself and that taxis can't fit in.  They know every street and alleyway in the city, and even if they don't, have the local language skills to work it out.  My driver "Nam" was an utter professional, living up to this standard, but at the same time, I was completely comfortable at all times.  Never did he pull in front of a truck or bus or weave in and out of traffic, and always accelerated at a reasonable speed.  The only issue was that because he was so short, each time we slowed down, I almost broke my nose.

Nam says "OK thankyou", as he drives away

And so my first time on a xe om took me to a fairly interesting visit at the Reunification Palace. (Though I would have to say I enjoyed my time with Nam more, and I can't say that for most of the xe oms I have taken since!) I learnt about the significance of another more important entrance through the same gates, done by a number of North Vietnamese tanks on April 30, 1975.  Back then, it was known as the Presidential Palace.

Incredible video footage of this historic moment was taken by an Australian Neil Davis (1975), who reportedly stayed in Saigon because he hadn't yet picked up a safari suit he was having made.

If internet comments are anything to go by, this moment continues to be a source of national pride and disappointment, a happy/sad moment, all depending on your political and historical point of view.  For an insight into some near-sighted American AND Vietnamese patriotism, read the comment sections (some as recent as 3 months ago) on youtube of any of the Neil Davis footage of this moment.

Tank 843's significant arrival

Please keep off the grass