Transmongolian, part IV (Sunday, 30.8)

Emil, Johan, Padraig, Malte, Ingrdid, Amanda and Anja left the train this morning (8 A.M.) for Ulan Bator. It was somewhat a downer, because you kinda get used to people around you in a multiday train and we were having really much fun every day (and night). The previous night me and Malte were up until 5 A.M. sipping Moskovskay vodka and talking about different personalities onboard the train and how one could maybe cope with this.

The day before we had to take a lot of just sitting around in the Russian border and the customs. There was this six hour stop (at least) in a stop called Nauzhki and most of the time were hanging out in front of the train station just talking and at the same time catching some tan. We also went for an ice-cream, which we got from a local store, in front of which there were cows walking about. We took a souvenir for us all also: a photo with all of us in front of the train. We agreed on founding a Facebook event in which we could share our pictures and write about what we have been up to on our respective trips. Back to the border control. The Russian border control was pretty confusing: there was this sweating army-clothed bulldog guy, who searched our cabins, probably for illegal immigrants, because he looke only for a few seconds. The Mongolian border was much more efficient and more "user-friendly" because of the relaxed atmosphere. An old lady sold us so good dumplings with meatball-like meat inside that I was absolutely in heaven after several days of noodles.

The evening of the day before went as usual - very smoothly. Johan almost died of laughter as I was telling the other guys in the cabin about "der Schlangemann", the greatest piece of barbie-ken -doll animation ever made. Johan reciprocally taught me about meatballs spelled in Finnish and their meaning in Swedish. It is definitely 18+ stuff I can tell you that.. :)

The Mongolian scenery is quite greenish. Every place is occupied with thee Yurtas and small horses, even in the suburbs of UB. Lot of high peaks and grasslands on which wild horses may roam freely eating all the grass they would ever need. More south to UB was Gobi-desert, a barren land with nothing more than some grass here and there, and plains as far as the eyes could reach. What striked me the most was the fact that al the Mongolian people seemed very happy(-looking) and relaxed about everything. Maybe it has got something to do with them being these nomadic people and the really know how to enjoy little things in life. And they are very few: only 2.8 million inhabitants, of which one million live in UB.

We also got new cabin mates, whose names I did not ever get. They just sat around all day playing cards or sleeping and probably talking Mongolese by the looks of it.

In the evening Silja, me and Heike went to eat to the Mongolian restaurant car (along came Havvie and Cvee [it's our joke about talking Cockney of everything,
you just leave all the t's from the words and spell r as v, and you should be a cockney-master in no time.] for some drinks). It was pretty basic meatsauce with rice, potato and seaweed. Heike ate a little plate of salad and all-too-big soup with meat chunks and noodles in it. Probably a very Mongolian cuisine - simple.