On the rails to Russia

Monday, August 16, 2010

(Written on the day.)

Good morning! It's 9:30am and we are sitting at the Mongolian border, in the town of Sukhbaatar (383km from UB), set at the junction of the Selenga and Orkhon Rivers, the capital of the Selenge aimag (province) founded in the 1940s. We arrived around 5am but were allowed to sleep until 8am. We are currently undergoing passport control and customs. We should be leaving in the next hour+. I slept very well last night. Popped an Ambien before bed and don't remember much else. Still a bit groggy as I think I needed a bit more time to sleep it off. I've decided that since I'll be traveling so long on the train, I will add the kilometer markers after station names. This should help give you a sense of the massive distance covered by the Trans-Mongolian/Siberian.

I think that now is the perfect time to catch up on my journal. I've done the 15th and I'm sure I started writing the 14th on my netbook, so I think I'll finish the 13th, day at the ger camp. [Have now added this to the blog.]

(All I wrote on August 16 was the catch up of the previous few days. The rest of my journal for today is written in my entry from August 17.)