In all, there were five legs of this journey spent on sleeper trains. I've described the three middle sections here (the first section was only overnight, described earlier, and the final gorgeous section is on the Toward Beijing page):

• Moscow -> Yekaterinburg
• Yekaterinburg -> Irkutsk
• Irkutsk -> Ulaan Baatar

We were driven to the train stations and often shown our platforms, but they were never particularly hard to find if you knew your time and destination in Cyrillic. Knowing the train number was helpful as well, but there were not that many choices, really. Then it was just a matter of looking at the paper numbers in the window that indicated the train car on your ticket and finding the entrance door.

Our tickets - with assigned bed numbers - were for second-class kupe compartments which meant four beds instead of two like in first class, but in a lockable cabin unlike the third class platzcart which has no barriers, just bed after bed with no privacy and more people to share the toilets at the end of each train car. (The more colorful stories about Russian train travel often come from platzcart.) For the great majority of the journey, we shared our compartment with two strangers (sometimes who knew each other and sometimes who did not) who usually were on shorter journeys than us.

We always received fresh linens when we boarded: two sheets, a pillowcase, and a hand towel. One set per trip. They were either in sealed plastic bags in the compartment already or else the carriage attendant brought them to us shortly after we were moving. (Unlike I read, we never had to pay for them; perhaps it is now included in the price?) At the end of our trip, we either left the sheets where they were or gave the pile to the carriage attendant.

Folks: We are on the Fancy Train. Our trip planners put us on Train #16, called the "Ural", which is a firmenny, a faster, cleaner, newer, and more well-serviced train than average. Indeed, the train even smelled new. Our compartment had its own electrical outlet and a television above the door, though I was surprised that there were not individual headphones; we had to listen to whatever our cabinmate was watching. The toilet was also completely fine. The route was somewhat different; our stops were not the ones mentioned in my Handbook, but it did not matter much. At the end of the corridor was a lit-up display with the time, temperature, wagon number, and whether the toilets were occupied. We had a feeling (and we were correct) that we would never be on a train this nice again.

We boarded just before five o'clock in the afternoon. Train car 8, beds 21 and 22, which were one on top of the other and facing forward, yay. The train began in Moscow and ended in Yekaterinburg, just like us. Our car was fairly empty. In the cabin next to us were two German ladies, one who looked older than my mother, but had very short, bright orange hair. Sharing our compartment was a quiet Russian fellow, maybe mid-30s.

Failing to Wander Far... I thought it would be fun to wander up and down the train, but I did not get far. As soon as I got to the front of the train car and tried the (locked) door, the provodnitsa (carriage attendant or conductress) immediately popped out of her room and asked what I was doing. She spoke not a word of English but I understood when she asked if I wanted to use the toilet or have a smoke. I could not explain that I just wanted to go for a walk (I'm a tourist!) and she even tried to get the German ladies involved since apparently she knew some German and they knew some English. But there was No Communication, despite use of a phrasebook and drawing some pictures. I eventually gave up and walked in the other direction, which I knew must be open since it led in the direction of the dining car.

Between the Train Cars Walking between the train cars is scary! You open the sliding door and suddenly it is loud and the ground is moving beneath you and it is windy. You are not outside by any stretch - still enclosed by walls - but I had a panicky thought that I could get stuck in there. The door behind me started closing automatically (these trains had fancy automatic doors with buttons) and I hopped back into the train car nervously. Next time I went, I quickly walked over the moving ground and pressed the button on the other side, relieved when the door opened. Then I walked through several train cars all the way to the restaurant car... which was locked. Oh, well.

Train Food I had expected there to be a lot of people selling food on the platforms, based on what I read, but I saw very little of that. At the first stop, while I did see one man who had a few beers and sodas for sale (like a total of six actual cans), the few other salesmen and saleswomen on the platform were inexplicably selling taxidermy birds, taxidermy meerkats, and glassware. Mostly, we saw booths that said producti which translates as "products." They sold drinks and snacks aplenty. Maybe these are driving the individual vendors out of business? Or maybe it is the wrong time of year. Though, at one stop, the German lady came back into the train and showed me her purchase. "Fish!" she said excitedly in English. So someone out there was selling something edible.

Making Our Bed Our delicious dinner (from what we purchased at the supermarket in Moscow) included bread, cheese, apples, cucumbers, kumquats, and chocolate wafers for dessert. Our finely-muscle-toned cabinmate, whose name we learned was Valiere, did not want to partake what we offered. He said little, ate little, had a beer, then went to bed at 8pm. Later, we set up our own beds and then went to sleep. Sleeping on the train is a mixed bag. The rocking movement is soothing and the rumbling sound of the train a nice white noise that blocks out the sounds of things like shifting in bed or snoring. The seats were plenty wide and comfortable to sleep on (though I am fairly short.) But the cabin door opening and closing is quite loud and the lights that go by through the window very bright. (The windows have curtains, but they are not thick.)

Valiere Cracks a Smile I slept okay and when I woke, we entered a new time zone. There did not seem to be much in the way of cold drinking water, but they did have the samovar at the end of the train car that dispensed water heated by coals. Very, very hot water. This train also had a menu with Lipton tea, sugar, and snacks for sale (none of the other trains had this) but I had brought my own. With the (hot) tea, I ate a blueberry tart and cherry tomatoes for breakfast. Valiere took out a small bar of chocolate, giving us a some, which we took, but he ate nothing that we offered. Rachel was drawing with four kid-sized colored pencils that the train randomly provided and, when her stubs got low, was able to borrow a knife from Valiere to sharpen them! He finally laughed and agreed when she asked to draw a portrait of him.

So What is Out the Window? Birch forests, abandoned factories, running factories, little villages with wooden houses (some of those looked abandoned as well) and more forests, mostly deciduous. Not a lot of fences. Not a lot of hills. Occasional cows or sheep clustered together. If I stood in the hallway and looked sideways out the window, I could read the kilometer marker if I waited for a bit. It read 1194. We were sixteen hours and over seven hundred miles from Moscow.

Dining Car Excursion We finally tried out the dining car for lunch. No one else was in there. The woman taking our order from the extremely long menu (with the funniest English translations I'd yet seen on this trip) only said "Nyet" to one of the items we pointed to. I ended up having the "Hot Salad" (iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers with hot beef on top) and Rachel had fried potato wedges in mushroom sauce. The servings were small, but the food was tasty. Including our juice and soda, the total was 400 rubles ($13.) As far as we could tell, the only food Valiere had for lunch had been a small bag of peanuts. In fact, all he has eaten during our entire over-24-hour trip has been beer, peanuts, and a little chocolate. It's not my business or anything, but not only is he missing the whole "sharing food" culture I had read about, he seems to not be getting adequate fuel for those muscles.

I spent some time reading my book and napping, though the long journey was making me headachy. Nothing that two ibuprofen couldn't take care of, though. When we pulled into the station at around 8pm that night, realizing that although the train time was on Moscow time, our itinerary was local, we said a friendly goodbye to Valiere (Rachel said with a straight face, "I would have totally made out with you") and we drug our bags out to the platform to look for a sign with our name on it.

Time To Sweat We're on a real train now, nothing fancy on #340, boarding on a stop in the middle of a longer route, the train already full of people (and a fellow in our compartment, who we briefly greeted.) We were in beds #21 and #22 again and it was about eleven in the evening, but the late hour did not keep it from being uncomfortably warm in the train car while we waited for it to move. The window in our compartment had a lower section and an upper section at the top bunk which you could open. Both me and Rachel enjoyed the pleasure of laying on the top bunk and feeling the breeze on our face as the twilight-lit scenery went by. (Though our cabinmate wanted to close the window, miming shivering (really?) which we eventually conceded to.) Before we fell asleep, at some unknown stop, a fourth person joined our cabin, taking the open bed across from mine.

The Secret Key We discovered the next morning that the same two German ladies from the last train were in the compartment next to us again! "Nice to see you again!" we said to each other. For breakfast, I had a beverage that said, "100% COK" on it though cok, pronounced sok just means juice in Russian. A woman regularly walked down the hallway selling water, soda, and snacks from a basket, but she always walks by so fast, you cannot catch her. This train has a red-and-orange oriental scheme, quite different than the blue modern scheme of the last train. And the carriage attendant (the male version is called provodnik) used his special triangle key to unlock and open the hall windows this morning, which made for a wonderful breeze if you stood in just the right spot.

Chatting with Sergei, the Climber The older man in the lower bunk knew no English beyond "Good morning!" but he was very friendly and, using my journal as a drawing pad, we had a long conversation. He had apparently climbed Mt. Freaking McKinley with ten other people as well as a mountain in Argentina that was 7,095 meters high (over 23,000 feet!). He got off at Omsk. Since we were at Omsk for quite some time, Rachel also exited to fine a less sketchy toilet in the station building (and also found some ice cream bars at one of the producti booths to cool us off.) When the train is stopped, it makes all sorts of noises, creating anxiety that it is about to take off without you, but when it actually does move it is as quiet as a mouse. (Luckily, the carriage attendants all stand outside the door during the stop, so you can watch them or just ask them how much time is remaining.) At another stop, a saleswoman popped on briefly, going compartment to compartment persistently selling scarves, but it was definitely the wrong temperature for that!

Me No Want Bubbles! Between Omsk and Novosibirsk is the "busiest freight route in the world" or such, and it was no surprise. Seems like trains were constantly going by in the other direction. I realized that the giant bottle of water I had bought in the supermarket was sparkling (and the "drinking water" on the train came out barely more than a drop at the time and kinda tasted funny.) I tried to catch the woman walking by selling things, but did not catch up and I almost accidentally walked into the platzcart section of the train, which I would have preferred not to walk through without reason, as it looked crowded with people on beds. I caught the next lady walking by with a basket, but she only had sparkling water. Then I saw a basket in the carriage attendant's room and bought a bottle from him for 50 rubles. And, again, was sparkling! Sheesh! Rachel had the idea to mix it with juice, and it was not so bad then, but not particularly thirst quenching. Finally, during our night stop at Novosibirsk, I discovered what to look for on the bottle. I wanted NYEgavirovannaya not gavirovannaya and finally got myself a giant bottle of regular water.

Toilet Woes The good part I guess, was that about 4 out of every 5 times, there was toilet paper available. Though, sharing a bar of soap is kinda nasty. Better than no soap I guess, but I always used my anti-bacterial gel afterward. The toilet seats were scratched up and black, so you could not tell if there was something gross on it. At least you could put your toilet paper in the toilet and not in a wastebasket. There was a pedal to flush (that basically opens the bottom out to the track, sending some water with it) but stand back when you release the pedal or you might get water splashed back up at you. On at least three occasions, I was in the toilet when the train stopped. For major towns and stations, the carriage attendant is supposed to lock the door well ahead of time. Once, I heard him rapping on the door, saying something harshly in Russian. But I stayed in there until the train started moving again, then I flushed. The next two times were shorter, smaller stops, but I still refused to flush unless the train was moving, mostly out of courtesy. But seriously! Lock the doors if the train is about to stop! The provodniks did not seem that organized.

Finally, Some Shots! Shortly after Novosibirsk, two men replaced the empty spots in our compartment. The bottom bunk was taken by an animated guy named Victor. We spent a good chunk of the next day talking to Victor. He was on a big fishing trip with some other guys (the fellow on the top bunk was a shy younger fellow - maybe a son or nephew - named Anton who was on the trip, too) and he showed us his waders and other very elaborate equipment. We also showed each other pictures of our families and he asked if I was single. At mealtime, we did a toast (not vodka, but alcohol of some sort) then he fed us sausage to go with our bread and gave me some sweetened condensed milk to go with my tea. (I had a look of such enjoyment upon drinking my tea, that he insisted on giving me the rest of his sweetened condensed milk as a present!) He was a good sport and tried on one of the hats Rachel had knitted during our trip.

Seats for Your Laptop So I noticed that, in the hallway, there are actually fold down seats you can sit on if you don't mind getting in the way of people walking by and the carriage attendants vacuuming. (Just standing, though, it can be a squeeze for someone to get by.) But, more than sitting, the seats make good places to put your laptop while you are charging them in the nearby plugs. As far as I can tell, there are about two plugs per train car and they were almost always being used to charge electronics. However, the electricity was not always on during the day! Sneaky.

Not-So-Wildfire? We started noticing that there was an unusual amount of fires in the distant grasslands. For a fair chunk of time we smelled smoke through the window. It seemed unlikely that so many small fires had started independently, but we could not think of why they would be burning purposely. We also passed a fair number of long, rectangular and almost dilapidated brick buildings with dozens of large, metal doors all in a row. We realized these were storage lockers when we saw an SUV backed up to one.

New Cabinmate After Victor and Anton (and all their fishing buddies) left, and I conveyed my practiced Russian phrase "It was great to meet you", we had the compartment to ourselves for a few hours. I took the empty seat and read for a while. We had an uneventful meal in the dining car where I tried the traditional Russian soup solyanka which was quite tasty. Eventually, we got a new cabinmate named Andrey. He was very well dressed. My Russian smalltalk must be getting better... he started saying all sorts of stuff to me and I had no idea what he was talking about. Just as I was wondering why Andrey was not receiving linens from the carriage attendant, he disembarked.

Not a Good Night's Sleep While we were trying to sleep, it seemed like the train was starting and stopping constantly, other trains whooshing by in the opposite direction flashing blindingly bright lights in the window. The only good part was that, when I woke in the middle of the night, I could often look out the window and see stars. Because of the long, long days, I'd hardly seen nighttime at all during this trip. Between the time we turned out the lights until our 9:30am arrival in Irkutsk (more accurately, our 8:30 rapping on the door by our new provodnitsa), we had two women separately come into the compartment, make the bed, sleep for a bit, then leave before morning; maybe it is a popular area for short trips? We were pretty sleepy when we drug our bags out to the station in Irkutsk.

A Whole Different Experience Our train to Mongolia was a new animal entirely. First off, I don't think there were any Russians on board, at least not in our car, which was apparently the only car making the full international journey. We were fairly evenly split by Mongolians and Western tourists. Our cabin mates were two Mongolian women, a younger and an older one, part of a group of mostly female railway workers (if we understood them correctly.) They were very friendly and knew a few English phrases. We did more of the traditional cultural "food sharing" in the first ten minutes of our journey than the rest of the trips combined. We shared some cherry chocolate and in return got some crunchy milkish squares and something like a potato crouton.

Turtle And for the first time this trip, some good old American English! An outgoing guy from California (nicknamed Turtle) was a few compartments down, traveling with a group of ten or so people from various European countries and Australia as part of an "Intrepid Travel" tour. Finally, people to talk to in complete sentences! Turtle passed on all sorts of gossip, talking about how they had found strange items, mostly food, in their luggage compartments when they boarded. They were told by their translator that there were rules about what you could and could not bring across the border, so they asked the carriage attendant, a Mongolian woman, to remove the items. In all the reading I'd done about this trip, I had never heard of any rules about unexpectedly forbidden items at the border crossing (all I had heard was that bringing a lot of cash, art, or antiques could invite heavy duties.) There was a sheet of English instructions and I was not sure if was part of Intrepid's info or part of the train itself, but it did not seem to be very specific (though I only skimmed it.) My paranoia was heightened.

The First Weird Thing Unlike every other leg of our train journey, we were not given a top and a bottom bed. Our assigned beds were the two bottom ones. One thing this meant was that I had to wait until our cabinmates went to bed before I could even make my bed. It also meant that we did not lift the seat where our cabinmates were sitting to put our luggage there on our arrival; we fit it all under the other seat instead.

The Banana Affair Ever since I heard about the odd items stuffed in random compartments, I wondered if something was stuffed under what was, according to my ticket, my bed. I was trying to find a time when the two girls were up and about to check for myself, but I did not get an opportunity. Then finally, they lifted it for some reason and I saw it: a box of bananas!

It was a pretty good-sized box and was sitting where my luggage would normally have gone. I pointed to it and made a surprised exclamation. Although I never got the long and short of whether or not the box was actually against any regulations, I did not like that it was under my bed, as anyone searching would assume it was mine. (And the fact that we had gotten two bottom bunks had made me additionally suspicious.) After conversations with the Intrepid group, trying to confirm if it was indeed uncool, Rachel eventually asked them politely if they would remove it. They didn't balk. They moved it and I replaced the space with my bags. I don't know if I was being rude or being taken advantage of, though one thing was for sure: every inch of storage space was otherwise filled with boxes of various foodstuffs. Those gals were transporting something.

(Notably, the area under the seat was checked no less than four times by customs officials - see below section on the border crossing. So, whether or I not I would have gotten in trouble for the mystery box of bananas, getting it removed did save me repeated heart attacks.)

I'd read in other blogs that you can occasionally get on a Trader Train which is full of rowdy Mongolians transporting all manner of goods and taking up all the space they can. I'm almost positive that this was not one of those.

One Night to Mongolia Once the gals went up to their bed (neither used the ladder near the door, they just pulled themselves up to their top bunks) I could make mine. I did not sleep great; I tended to wake up often for one reason or another. The next morning was somewhat awkward... I felt like I needed to roll up my bed as soon as I could so the two gals could use my seat again. Except then I would not have had much room to sit until Rachel woke, but she got up pretty quickly after I did. The sandwich I bought in Irkutsk turned out to be hot dogs and mayonnaise on a bun; it was kind of nasty, especially for breakfast. I had an apple instead. Side note: garbage accumulates nonstop. On this train, the bags they give you for the sheets make good trash bags and it is amazing how quickly they fill. I'm glad I saved my grocery bags! There is a large garbage bin in the corner of the train car across from the restrooms (which fills quickly as well.)

The atmosphere in this train was really different than on the trains within Russia. Besides that we were in a car where the hallway was on the left (all the previous ones had been on the right side) it was louder and more celebratory. There was a lot of activity in the corridors and a lot of English. The landscape outside was meanwhile getting flatter, browner and increasingly treeless.

Supplies Running Out Just before we arrived at the border, we heard some girls at the end of the corridor noting that there was no toilet paper in the restroom. There was apparently some in the carriage attendant's room; not sure whether it was begged, borrowed, or stolen.

THE BORDER CROSSING

• Noon The carriage attendant was cleaning the train car with a rag on a stick and a bucket of water, dragging it over the floor. The Mongolians (who appear to be mostly traveling together) started to gather their passports and count money.
• 12:45 We arrived at Naushki, the border station on the Russian side. We overheard from the other passengers that we had 2-3 hours to wait before the customs officials arrived, so they let us off the train. We wandered around the nearly deserted station and behind it, where there was a very small town, We bought munchies from a producti and a deck of cards from one of a row of wooden booths with items for sale. The single cafe we saw was closed. It said it opened at "11", whenever that was. Not sure what time zone we were in. All the clocks read different times (I suspect one was Moscow time, one was local time, one was Mongolia time, and maybe there was just a broken clock, too.) As my handbook promised, Naushki has clean bathrooms! Unexpected for a train station, but what a relief for such a long wait. I paid my 8 rubles and made use of the loo. It was a squat style, though possibly might have had a Western option, I did not go looking. Also, since they only gave me a limited length of toilet paper to use - and I usually would use toilet paper to put on the toilet seat - I was happy enough with squatting. Ah, but lovely clean sinks with soap dispensers. It did take me about three minutes to figure out how to flush, but it was all good.
• 1:30ish Rachel and I were playing Gin on the train station floor, and noticed at some point that our train was no longer on the tracks. Though, since all the passengers were still wandering around (including the well-informed Intrepid group) and less than two hours had passed, we did not worry. Too much. We did see our train number listed on the board (in above mosaic photo) and it looked like we still had an hour or two to go, not that it was particularly clear what time it was.
• 2:20ish One of the passengers came up to us and told us that we were allowed back on the train if we wanted and that it was parked on the next track down. Sure glad our fellow English-speaking passengers are passing along information! Otherwise, we would not have had a clue! Up the tracks a bit was a little wooden walkway that made crossing easier, still a little scary, though. And there was our train car! One lone car. No engine. No dining car. Just us. "Like we are refugees," one of the passengers described it. We boarded and noticed that most everyone else was already on. Our cabin mates were not, though, so the carriage attendant had to unlock our compartment doors for us. Good thing we did not need our ticket as I'm pretty sure our carriage attendant took it earlier. The weather was starting to cool down a bit, enough where I was glad I had my jacket.
• 3:00 Our cabin mates returned but no customs officials had appeared yet. I overheard that we could change money at the next station. There was nowhere at the station to change it. (We were kind of alone.)
• 3:30 I overheard someone giving instructions to the other passengers (might have been Turtle passing along what he had heard.) "Line things up neatly and remain calm. If they ask you to stand up, do so, and they might check underneath." I was chatting with the couple next to me. The older fellow said, "Well, this isn't the worst we've been in." His wife replied, "Well, we don't know yet." There was a definite nervous tittering atmosphere among the English speakers.
• 3:40 The first person I saw in official uniform passed in the corridor.
• 3:55 A grandfatherly border patrolman with a badge politely asked us for our passports. He spent all of five minutes with them. I also gave him a registration form one of the hotels gave me... not sure I needed to?
• 4:59 Oh, yes, we were still sitting and waiting an hour later. A woman in uniform appeared in the doorway and said in English, "Passport, please." I gave it to her. She looked at it, said my first name, then did the same for Rachel (and presumably the same in Mongolian for our cabin mates). Then she said, "I take passport," and walked away with the four passports, which luckily, I had expected.
• 5:15 Men in uniforms were in the corridors with a medium-sized golden dog. (The Intrepid translator had mentioned she hoped they would bring the cute dog again...)
• 5:20 A uniformed woman came to our compartment to ask if we had anything to declare like "drugs." We shook our heads. She asked everyone to lift their seats and she took a look (Phew, no bananas.)
• 5:29 Another uniformed woman (might have been the same one?) returned our passports to us and asked us in Russian, then in English to "Leave the compartment, please." We walked into the corridor and she checked under the seats again and above the beds with a flashlight. Apparently the wealth of merchandise our cabin-mates had brought was no big deal? She moved on to the next compartment.
• 5:40 A woman gave us an arrival card in English and a customs form in Russian.
• 5:50 The train is moving! (Five hours later.) We are on our way to the Mongolia side! Luckily, our Mongolian cabin mates randomly had an English version of the customs form they filled out earlier, so we cross-referenced it to complete the Russian form. I had filled out an English version in Saint Petersburg, so it was familiar.
• 6:05 We stopped briefly at a small building with an electrified fence in the middle of nowhere. When we started moving again, I saw a watchtower and took a photo. The fellow next to me was doing the same, but then got berated. "You're not supposed to take photos here!" No one told me that. Maybe my camera is not impressive enough to inspire paranoia? Or perhaps the Intrepid translator just has a lot of knowledge that we simply are not aware of.
• 6:10 We reached a log cabin building and stopped there (but there was no station and they did not open the doors.) There was a poster on the side of the building that said, in English, "Welcome to Mongolia."
• 6:30 In something of a surreal moment, the train stopped for about twenty minutes at a pretty pink house, all alone along the tracks. What looked like a mother with her two young children came out of the house, boarded the train, and brought something to the carriage attendant. The engineer (?) went out to have a cigarette. Then we were on our way again, training through the rocky, more hilly landscape. Someone opened a window and the breeze was pleasantly cool. Then they closed it again, boo. I was starting to get hungry despite all the bread and honey I had been munching on. I did have a backup cup o' noodles, but I was holding out.
• 7:07 We passed slowly by our first Mongolian village, which looked a lot like a Russian village, with wooden and brick houses, an occasional yurt in their midst, an ugly blue apartment building, and something that looked like a giant disco ball.
• 7:12 We have arrived at Sükhbaatar, the Mongolian side of the border. Several official looking people were crossing the tracks to come on board, the carriage attendant hurriedly closing the hall curtain that I had opened earlier.
• 7:17 A uniformed woman came in, took our passports briefly and asked how many days we would be in Mongolia. We said 3 or 4, but upon thinking, I realized it was closer to 5, maybe 6 with the train days. But she did not write it down or anything. I got the impression it was not long enough to worry about.
• 7:22 Another uniformed woman, with a tall man hovering behind her, took our passports and arrival cards, but not our customs forms.
• 7:26 A man in military fatigues had us leave the compartment while he searched it, this time using a ladder even. No English was spoken.
• 7:36 A woman came by to take our customs forms, but made sure they were complete, giving two back to complete missing sections. They she had us lift our seats to show her our luggage. No idea what they are looking for. Stowaways? Definitely not bananas, right?
• 7:50 We got our customs forms back. (To be more accurate, we got the Australian couple's forms and they got ours.) The electricity appears to be off. Conversation overheard: "I'd risk arrest just to use the toilet right now." "I'd just like a beer."
• 7:54 I went to get hot water for my cup o' noodles and was hurried back by the attendant because the passport people were returning.
• 7:56 Our passports were returned with a barely legible and tiny green stamp on them. I enjoyed my noodles. (Notably, there is no dining car on the Irkutsk - Ulaan Baatar run.)
• 8:03 They finally let people off the train for food and facilities. Rachel got off. I stayed on. At some point, a Mongolian dude came on board, asking if we wanted to change money. I didn't have my handy conversion sheet that I wrote up before I left (and had been advised that exchange rates would be bad) so I decided against it. After he left, I changed my mind. I wanted to enter the country with Mongolian money. And it wasn't like I was changing much. So, when a Mongolian woman came on board for the same reason, I took her up on her offer. Amazingly, she consulted my conversion sheet. For 200 Rubles, I should have gotten almost 9,000 Tugrik. I got 8,000. Well, close enough. It's all less than ten bucks.
• 8:15 The train started moving backwards, but I was sort of used to this by now. We were just moving to another track. I just hoped Rachel would be able to find it! (Luckily, as it turned out later, Turtle explained the situation to her, yay for Turtle!)
• 9:05pm We departed!

ALL IN ALL, EIGHT HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES TO CROSS THE BORDER

About forty minutes into Mongolia, at one of the many stops in the beginning, all the boxes (and bananas) were taken off the train by the group of Mongolians. Then, once we were out of the populated area, came the rush to use the restrooms and brush teeth. Oddly, I noticed that, on only this train, the restroom at one end has the "woman" symbol and the other has the "man" symbol. On one hand, I love this idea. On the other hand, I don't think anyone noticed. Rachel confessed she did not and had been using whichever one was open.

We headed to bed anticipating our 6:10am arrival in Ulaan Baatar.

Some helpful train-realted phrases to learn: "What station are we at?" "How many more minutes?" "Where are you going?" "Are you open?"