Gobi

Just had to do a more detailed blog on the Gobi part of the train journey.

The landscapes seen from the train crossing Inner Mongolia and into Outer Mongolia must be unique. Once the train has climbed the foothills from Beijing onto the plain, arable land eventually gives way to desert as you cross into Inner Mongolia. There are no gers visible from the train up to the border with Outer Mongolia.

The border was crossed at about 00:30 hours and we awoke around 06:30 hours next morning to the flat, sandy desert seen here. Only the telegraph wires and the odd railway building broke the emptiness.

The landscape starts to change about 4 hours out from Ulaanbaatar with sweeping hills, less sparse vegetation and now with the occasional ger. In the bottom right hand corner of the picture can be seen a grey smudge on the ground.

It is a pile of stones marking a grave. These can be seen all the way from Beijing by the side of the railway tracks. No designated areas, sometimes in groups among trees or, as here, just out in the open. I have read that it is the tradition to bury people where they die, and as the Mongolians did not have a tomb building culture, this is most probably how Chinggis Khan was interred when he died.

Looking north east, mountains that make up the end of a range stretching north into Siberia appear. I think in the line of sight of this photograph must be Avraga, Chinggis Khan’s “capital”. John Man’s ‘Genghis Khan, life, death and resurrection’ is a good read. Thank you Richard. Recommend it to you.

The train then really starts to climb. The slop in the picture is not exaggerated, I promise you. Your ears pop!!!!. The track snakes this way and that to achieve a reasonable gradient for the engines traction. Even then it takes 2 engines to make the ascent and the feel of the train is plodding,… dedum dedum, ……dedum dedum.

This shot shows the gradient coming down the other side. The train has just completed about 80% of a full circle and is approaching the embankment it had just travelled over!! The brakes are on and off all the time and the train feels lighter, tick i ti-tick…...tick i ti-tick. Strange. Lord knows what would happen if every the brakes failed!!!!! The track then cuts left and

the mountains at the head of the Ulaanbaatar valley came into view. It had snowed the previous day and we had this extraordinary sight laid out in front of us. Amazing.