Our train ran on the first leg of the Trans-Mongolian railway from Beijing to Ulan Bator, Mongolia's capital. It took 30 hours total
Why thank you
Train schedule. Last stop: Moscow
It was a holiday so the trains were full, luckily we had bunks and didn't have to stand
Tanks at twilight
Border stop
We had to get out and wait for them to change the wheels on the train because Mongolia uses a different width track than China
The Gobi Desert
Mongolian train stop
Lots of Mongolia looks like eastern Wyoming, not much going on
Towards Ulan Bator it got a little more interesting
Yurts (gers, in Mongolian) that surrounded the city
City square in Ulan Bator, Genghis (Chinggis) Khan displayed proudly and prominently
Street boys smoking. These guys were funny, while one of them was watching us his buddy snuck up behind him and gave him a huge wedgie
Genghis and me
Folk song performance
Mongolian throat singing is awesome. Go to YouTube right now and watch some videos
Shamanistic mound with Buddist temple in the background
Prayer wheels and temple
Feeding the birds
They like their meat in Mongolia and I have to say I like that they like it
Gers in the countryside
This place was beautiful
Clear water
Blue sky
I've never seen pine trees that changed color and lost their leaves before. Apparently the name of this tree kind of tree is tamarack larch.
Butchering a cow for all to see
Riding horses
I'm going to go out on a limb right here and say that this probably isn't a five star golf course
Not sure what that sign says
If you look closely, you will see a soccer goals set up out in the middle of the field. Nothing strange about that. But if you look again you will see basketball nets set up as well. That one leaves me scratching my head.
Bactrian camels. You can remember they are called bactrian because they have two humps like the letter B. The one-humped variety are called dromedary, D has one hump, you get it. Cool how that works out eh?
Don't talk back
My trusty steed
This guy wasn't too tall
The camel ride was amazingly smooth, no wonder people use these to travel long distances
Third different type of animal ridden in one day, that's a record for me
Hanging out with Mongolian friends
Watch your step
I think these uniforms were Russian, not sure though
Me, crossing the river on rocks
Car, crossing the river without rocks
Cute little girl, crossing the river with mom's help
Sweet sky
Ger being erected
It snowed the day we were supposed to fly out and our plane back to Beijing was delayed 14 hours until 2 am. Ouch.
