An Unexpected End

Before my parents arrived to meet us in Southeast Asia, Yann and I had already been discussing our onward travel plans for several weeks. We settled on Sumatra and even got our visas in George Town. But as the heat beat down on us day after day, our keenness for two months of the same climate had waned significantly. By the time we had reached Singapore, we both agreed that we wanted to ride somewhere cooler. Several options were suggested, but we eventually settled on a fairly inexpensive flight to San Francisco. From there we thought we would ride up the coast to Vancouver and make our way across the Canadian Rockies as spring set in.

We flew with China Eastern Airlines, which, despite serving absolutely disgusting food, didn't charge us anything to transport our bicycles! As usual, our inexpensive flight was accompanied with a long layover. We spent 12 hours sleeping at the Shanghai Airport before boarding our connection. We arrived in San Francisco in the morning, found the "bike assembly station" at the airport and began the bag organization/bike reassembly process. It took Yann almost 4 hours to put the bikes together, but we were able to conveniently ride out from the airport on a bicycle path! If only all airports were so bike-friendly.   Doing his least favourite task at SFO: bike re-assembly

We were hosted by the lovely Martin and Heidi at their equally lovely home in Little Russia. We didn't get much of a chance to visit the city, we were busy stocking up on camping supplies and some warmer clothing than what we had dragged through Asia (we had actually tossed most of what we'd been wearing for the past few months, our cycling shirts were mold-encrusted and our cycling shorts had disintegrated). We still managed to discover the amazing network of bike lanes across the city while we ran our errands. We left the city after two short days, but we were well-fed, well-rested and well-equipped.   Leaving San Francisco

Since my parents visit, we hadn't been on our bikes for nearly a month, so we decided to enjoy the scenery and ride shorter distances every day. We also wanted to slow down so that we wouldn't arrive in Vancouver with snow still on the ground. We hadn't done a huge amount of route planning, and it wasn't until we purchased our map that we realised that the biggest North Coast city after San Francisco had a population of about 35,000 people. Typically, the towns we crossed had populations between 500 and 1000 people. As it was still the cool, rainy spring season, the highway wasn't busy with the hordes of summer tourists. The camp sites were completely deserted. Most nights we were the only campers in huge multi-site state parks. Other than drizzle on a few days, the weather was perfect for cycling and sleeping especially after months of Southeast Asian heat but I was beginning to feel pretty lonely on the empty highway.

  First night of camping at the deserted Samuel P. Taylor State Park

  North Coast, outside the town of Jenner

  We're the only campers at Stillwater Cove Regional Park

  On the way to Gualala

We slowly made our way up the coast until the small town of Gualala where we stopped to re-evaluate our plans. Yann had been complaining about a sharp pain in the back of his knee since getting off the plane in San Francisco. After more than a week, the pain had not subsided at all. He could still cycle, but he had difficulty walking. When he first mentioned the pain I had attributed it to sitting weirdly and had largely ignored his complaints, but it seemed unusual that over a week later he was still in so much pain.

We checked into a small hotel and called our insurance company to inquire about our coverage in the United States. After describing Yann's symptoms we got the instructions to "go to the hospital immediately", they suspected a blood-clot from the long flight. It was Sunday evening, we were in a town of 500 people, the nearest hospital was a three hour drive away. I felt pretty panicked, I had been totally downplaying Yann's pain to make him feel better, while simultaneously reading about scary blood clots.

Within minutes of calling 911, the local firemen and paramedics were in the parking lot of our hotel. Yann was pretty embarrassed as they carried him off in a stretcher. Even though his condition was potentially dangerous, he felt fine and the situation seemed somewhat absurd. We ended up at the local clinic, where the doctor concluded (as we already knew), that he'd have to get to a larger hospital where they could perform an ultrasound. The staff were incredibly kind, and even suggested that we load our bicycles and equipment into the ambulance so that we wouldn't be stuck leaving everything behind (we ruled it out pretty quickly though). It took us three hours on the winding highway, backtracking on the route we had ridden over the course of a week. The sheer cliff-side seemed a lot scarier in the dark from the front seat of an ambulance.

Hospital staff were waiting for Yann when we arrived at the hospital in Santa Rosa. Yann's ultrasound revealed a small blood clot in his leg, but since it was not in a major vein there was no danger of the clot travelling to his heart or lungs. It would just be painful until it would eventually dissolve by itself. We were discharged at midnight, relieved, but in a bit of shock. We had gone from cycling the coast, to sitting in a county hospital hundreds of kilometres away. Exhausted we checked into a hotel and made plans to get back to our bicycles the next day.   Last photo of the trip, sitting in Gualala waiting for the bus to San Francisco

It took a full day of public transport to get is back to Gualala where we spent another night. We had already made the decision that this would mark the end of our trip. We were tired and unenthusiastic and Yann was still in a lot of pain. We felt it was the right time to head home, about 6 weeks earlier than we had originally planned. It wasn't a particularly difficult decision, although it did feel like a pretty disappointing finish line. We travelled back to San Francisco, the fourth time on the same stretch of highway. A series of public buses connected us to the airport and we arrived in snow-covered Ottawa the next day, with our relieved family waiting for us.

Stats for SFO to Gualala, California:

Days of cycling: 5
Days of rest: 3
Kilometres cycled: 237
Metres climbed: 2916
Cycle-tourists crossed on the road: 1
Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support

Cycling Yunnan: Kunming to Laos via Dali

With only 25 days on our Chinese visa, we did this trip way faster than we wanted to, and were probably a little bit too ambitious about the distance we wanted to cover. We ended up cycling 20 days, including a consecutive 11-day stretch. There isn't a flat kilometre in the province, but we were rewarded with empty highways, good quality roads and unbelievable scenery (for the most part). Here's our summary with some additional info at the end.

Part 1 (Kunming to Old Dali – Highway G320)
 

Had we done a little bit more planning ahead of time, we might have cut south towards Laos directly from Kunming allowing for a more leisurely pace. But we were keen on cycling the western part of the province and we thought we might enjoy a break in Old Dali. The G320 highway runs roughly parallel to the expressway that absorbs most of the traffic heading west from Kunming. We shared the road with locals who were avoiding the expressway tolls or moving between villages. We hoped to complete this ride in four days, but with all the climbing it took us five. This road is probably the busiest and the least scenic of the highways we rode in Yunnan. The cities which seem to be plopped down in the middle of nowhere were truly uninspiring. Luckily, most of the ride was through rural countryside which was far more picturesque, although not immune to the plague of Chinese urban development.


We knew that Old Dali would be busy and probably disappointing. But we planned to stop there any ways to enjoy the comforts of our last major tourist destination in China. This basically meant eating hamburgers and having an internet connection with a functioning VPN. We had visited Old Dali seven years earlier, and we found the city to be completely transformed. It was overrun with tour groups and expanded with horrible Chinese construction. In our opinion, Old Dali can be skipped, although it's a good place to do laundry, eat western food and get your internet fix (see notes on internet below).

Part 2 (Old Dali to Nanjian – Highway S224)
 

 

We only spent a day and a half on this secondary road before rejoining the national highway at Nanjian. We chose the route so that we could stop in the town of Weishan, which we had read was worth a visit. Signs advertised it as “Weishan Ancient Cultural & Historical Town” which we assumed would mean that it was a tourist trap. We were pleasantly surprised to find it unaffected by its designation. It has a quiet, charming old quarter which we wandered through all afternoon without seeing more than 2 or 3 tourists.
  

Part 3 (Nanjian to Lincang – Highway G214)

 

We spent three and a half days on this highway complete with several full-day climbs. Although the traffic was fairly sparse, the trucks struggled up the hills and blew lots of thick exhaust at us. We also had to cycle through a fair number of long, unlit or dimly lit tunnels which were slightly unnerving. The positive aspect of them being dark was that the drivers seemed to be as nervous about being in them as we did and drove really slowly.

The cities we passed through continued to be uninteresting, but the sections of raised highway through the mountain were epic, especially when we were on a descent. We spent a rest day in Lincang, not because it was a nice place to stay, but because we were exhausted from all the climbing.

Part 4 (Lincang to Ning'er – Highway G323)

 

Instead of following the G214 we decided to cut east across central Yunnan in order to shave a few hundred kilometres and a few days off our ride. We ended up on a beautiful quasi-abandoned stretch of highway that was free of truck traffic, tunnels and ugly big cities.

From Lincang we had one of our most epic descents, over 1000 metres to the Lancang (Mekong) River, with spectacular views of the river gorge cutting through the mountains. We slept in a quiet motel and watched the morning mist rising from motel balcony. Other nights along this highway were spent in pretty basic truck stops, where the dark quiet nights in the mountains were enough to compensate for the mouse poop in the sheets.

Part 5 (Ning'er to Mohan – Highway G213)

 
When we joined up with the G213 we expected the worse in terms of traffic. We figured that the main route connecting Simao to Jinghong would be the busiest stretch of our ride. We didn't think the national highways could get any quieter than the G323, but we were wrong! Again, the parallel expressway absorbed almost all of the traffic and we rode alongside the few motorcycles making their way between villages and rubber plantations (it was rubber harvest season in the area, which was interesting but extremely stinky)

Much of the G213 highway runs through the Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve where the jungle is left untouched. Tree-cover shielded us from the sun, although the humidity was a lot higher than further north in the province. The climbs were much shorter though, which was a relief because we were starting to feel the effects of cycling for over a week without a break.

Other Information

Camping

We didn't camp at all in Yunnan. Any flat ground that we spotted was usually occupied by rice, corn or tobacco. In many areas, the highway climbed through the mountains, with steep cliffs on either side of the road. Probably the only camping option would have been to ask villagers to sleep on their land. In Xishuangbanna there were a few more suitable looking camp sites.

Truck stops

Other than highway G213 (where we slept in the towns), there were truck stops in even the smallest villages. They are usually unsigned, but you can easily distinguish them from village homes, they are long one-storey buildings with several side-by-side rooms. They come with shared bathroom facilities and very basic rooms, but usually a hot, solar-powered shower.

Motels/Budget Hotels

These are a step up from the truck stop in that they have private bathrooms. We had great, clean budget hotels with hot showers for most of our trip, usually for around 60 yuan a night (about $10). We could often roll the bicycle right into the room fully-loaded which was great for quick morning starts. In mid-sized towns, the hotels in our budget price-range tended to be a little bit crustier, but for the price we were completely satisfied.

 
Internet

Apart from the major tourist centres of Dali and Kunming, if you aren't a Chinese National, surfing at an internet cafe has become nearly impossible. Chinese ID cards are now equipped with an RF-ID so that they can be scanned right into the system at every internet cafe. The cafes are totally depressing, filled with mindless automatons smoking for hours on end while playing video games. The connections are terrible because no one is actually surfing, they're all just battling each other in locally networked video games.

Only at a few places were we given permission to use the computer, but we felt uncomfortable surfing because we didn't want to get the cafe owners in trouble. At one place, the employee hovered around Yann as he was reading the news. Using an online translator, he managed to transmit the three-word message “few pieces opinions”. Ok, we understand.

Food

There are restaurants everywhere in China. We tried to seek out refrigerated food display cases where all the available food items are on display. The fridges are perfect for ordering if you don't speak Mandarin because you just point at what you want. We tried a huge variety of vegetable dishes, almost all of them spicy. We usually paid 10 yuan for vegetable dishes and 20-30 for meat dishes. But we didn't really bargain.

In bigger towns, breakfast stalls selling steamed buns and/or dumplings lined the streets and set up very early. But elsewhere we had to plan for breakfast the night before by stocking up on fruits and store bought cakes. We would advise against buying the popular “French bread” unless you are looking for something that is very much not French bread. The best cakes we found we found were the “Daliyuan European-style cakes”, available at most mid-sized road-side shops. Even better were the homemade peanut cakes or date bread that we found a few times in local markets.

Once we discovered the Yunnanese noodles with self-serve toppings we ate them almost every day. Unfortunately the noodle vendors tended to close up shop pretty early, often before lunch time.

Border Crossing

We changed money on the Chinese side at a large money exchange building. We got an amazing rate, actually better than the official rate, which was perplexing enough that we thought we were being cheated. We avoided the numerous money changers hovering around the border.

On the Chinese side, in order to get our bicycles across the border we had to first pass customs (leaving our bicycles outside). Once we were stamped out, we could exit through the vehicle lane after showing the border guards our passports.

Similarly on the Lao side we had to leave our bicycles outside, go through customs, then exit through the vehicle lane. We advise not riding your bicycle through the vehicle lane, you have to walk it through unless you want a stern talking to.

Kilometre Breakdown
Here's how we broke up the trip to try to spread out the climbing and kilometrage as evenly as possible:

Day 1 – Kunming to Lufeng (104km, 703m)

Day 2 – Lufeng to Chuxiong Yi “Minority Village” (85km, 595m)

Day 3 – Chuxiong to Tianshentang Village (75km, 940m)

Day 4 – Tianshentang Village to Xiang Yun (70km, 665m)

Day 5 – Xiang Yun to Old Dali (84km, 878m)

Day 6 – Old Dali to Weishan (70km, 504m)

Day 7 – Weishan to Gonglang (85km, 612m)

Day 8 – Gonglang to Yunxian (73km, 959m)

Day 9 – Yunxian to Lincang (79km, 942m)

Day 10 – Lincang to the Mekong River bridge (68km, 578m)

Day 11 – Mekong River bridge to Chahe Village (68km, 1010m)

Day 12 – Chahe Village to Truckstop on the G323 (72km, 922m)

Day 13 – Truckstop on the G323 to Ning'er (58km, 752m)

Day 14 – Ning'er to Simao (50km, 689m)

Day 15 – Simao to Dadugang (74km, 799m)

Day 16 – Dadugang to Meng Kuan (83km, 836m)
Day 17 – Meng Kuan to Meng Yuan (77km, 899m)
Day 18 – Meng Yuan to Mengla (46km, 721m)
Day 19 – Mengla to Mohan (57km, 532m)

Stats for Kunming to Mohan:
Days of cycling: 19
Days of rest: 3
Kilometres cycled: 1 378 km
Metres climbed: 14 536 m

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop Expedition Support

Hong Kong Visa Run

Despite the highly efficient visa services offered in Hong Kong, we had no success getting a long term Chinese visa. Even worse was the fact that with a 14-day Chinese visa in our passports (from our failed attempt in Armenia) we were warned that we might only be granted another 14-day visa in Hong Kong. This meant the safe route was to apply for a 30-day group visa that would be issued on the same day but that was un-extendable, quashing any hope of a longer time in the country. Worse than that, the visa's 30 days begin on the date of issue. Having not had this important fact explained to us ahead of time, we only realised it when the group visa was in hand. It was our first day in Hong Kong and every day we would spend in the city would mean one less day in China. Our idea of taking it easy in Hong Kong was scrapped, as were much of our plans for touring Western China. We had to settle for a flight to Kunming, in southwestern Yunnan Province. We hoped that from there we could cycle to Laos without overstaying our visa.

In four days in Hong Kong, we managed to get three visas (China, Laos, Thailand), replace our water filtration system (sending home the useless Steripen), send home 4kg of baggage, eat dim sum at city hall, visit the Big Buddha on Lantau Island and hike on Hong Kong Island with our hosts. Despite being exhausted, we were grateful to have something forcing us to get our shit together. Hong Kong is a city that could have sucked us in much longer.   Dim sum at Maxim's Palace City Hall, a place for overeating and overspending

  Lantau Island, a peaceful oasis just a subway ride away from downtown. The amount of green space is what makes Hong Kong such an incredible place

With such an efficient airport and public transportation system we got way more done than we might have in any other place. Our favourite travel service was the downtown airline check-in counters. We didn't have to lug our bicycles and luggage all the way to the airport, we loaded them for a short taxi ride to the city centre where we checked them and got our boarding passes a full day early. We were then free to take the 20-minute airport shuttle, bicycle-free, whenever we wanted. Genius!

We landed in Kunming in the evening and had no problem finding a cheap unlicensed taxi to take us and our luggage to our hostel downtown. We booked a stay at the same hostel that we had stayed at seven years earlier and were pleased to see that it hadn't changed much. It was a bit busier than we had remembered, although maybe we're just getting old. Another sign of our ageing was moving on from the 8-bed dorm room to the double-the-price private room. Our seven-years-ago selves would be ashamed.

December 2006 at the Kunming Cloudland Hostel

October 2013 at the Kunming Cloudland Hostel

All we had to do in the city was re-assemble our bicycles and plan our route through Yunnan province. The bikes had survived the two flights (we reinforced them with lots of packing tape after the first flight from Tehran). Yann's basket took a bit of a beating as did one of his wheel skewers, but both were easily fixed. We did have to spend an entire morning unsuccessfully trying to fix a problem with one of the front wheels, unrelated to the flight, a rotor bolt stuck in the hub. We borrowed a drill, hoping to be able to dislodge the bolt, but after almost an hour of attempting to grind away the bolt with very little progress, it seemed that we were risking greater damage to the hub by continuing. So we opted for me, the person carrying the least luggage (and “the amateur who rarely uses her front brakes”) to use the wheel with the damaged hub.

  A smooshed bicycle basket

  The hostel staff helped us locate tools and were eager to help, but to no avail

  This rotor bolt isn't going anywhere

The weather in Kunming (known as the City of Eternal Spring) was perfect. The best weather we'd had in 4 months. The city, as far as Chinese cities go, feels extremely laid back. Especially on the weekends when seniors gather at the local parks to socialize, usually involving singing and dancing. We could have easily gotten into a routine of eating delicious Chinese food, lounging in the hostel courtyard and strolling around town, but the mountains of Yunnan were calling us!

One of many Kunming seniors listening to music at the park on a Sunday afternoon

Partially sponsored by Mountain Equipment Coop  Expedition Support

Kharkhorin - Ulaan Baatar - Beijing - Home

We escaped the beetle plague in Tsetserleg and headed for Kharkhorin, popular tourist destination due to its 13th century status as capital of the Mongol Empire: Karakorum. On the site of the ruins of the great city of Karakorum is now the large monastery of Erdene Zuu (whose construction began in the 16th century apparently using the stones of the ruins). In Kharkhorin we settled in a ger hotel where, as night approached, we became increasingly worried about beetle infestations and wondered about our choice of accommodation in the breezy ger. Our fears were assuaged when the hotel manager told us we could sleep on the restaurant floor if ever the bugs got out of control (that's what they did last year with the foreign tourists who complained). But we slept peacefully, the bugs having not yet migrated as far east. After Erdene Zuu Monastery, the city's next tourist destination is Kharkhorin Rock the holy phallic rock that apparently keeps the area's monks celibate. In recent years an even larger penis statue (complete with flaming testicles) has been built on the hill next to Kharkhorin Rock. From Kharkhorin we used public transportation for the first time in weeks, catching a bus to Ulaan Baatar. We had a few days of relaxation in the capital until our 30-day visa expired, we spent it shopping for souvenirs at the huge Naran Tuul Market (also known as the Black Market) and counting down the days until we could eat something other than Mongolian food.

We also took in a performance of the Mongolian National Song and Dance Ensemble. Our border crossing into China was no less chaotic than the one into Mongolia (although this time we had purchased train tickets ahead of time to get us to the border). Arriving at the border early in the morning we hired someone to drive us in to China (a mandatory border crossing-requirement). He managed to get himself up to the front of the queue of the hundreds of run-down Mongolian jeeps lining up to stock up on Chinese goods. Nevertheless, our crossing dragged out over many hours thanks to Yann and I who were held up by border guards who wanted to confiscate our antique Mongolian teapots. Who knew the metal detector was functional?

Throughout the teapot detention, our jeep driver who had worked so hard for his prime position in the jeep queue, huffed around threatening to abandon us at the border if we didn't abandon our teapots. Luckily it seemed that the border guards were not allowing him to do this. After much patient resistance (which I didn't think I was capable of), the border guards took photos of our items, send them to an antique expert in Ulaan Baatar, who several minutes later sent back the ok to leave the country with the two teapots in our possession.

Over the border, we had a little bit of trouble securing bus tickets to Beijing due to high demand. My broken Chinese and overly assertive tone attracted the attention of two fellow travellers, Neil and Mike, retired high school teachers who were also trying to get to Beijing.  They were extremely positive and good-natured and were a great contrast to the unhelpful ticket dealers (and me). We ended up securing four spots on that evening's sleeper bus to Beijing and we set off together.

In Beijing, our new friends joined us at our favourite hostel where we all booked rooms. Neil and Mike enthusiastically set out every day and came back every evening with hilarious stories (always telling them with an extremely positive spin). Yann and I mainly lounged around waiting for our flight home, but we did take the time to see some of the city's sights that we had skipped (or did not exist) on our previous visits; the trendy 798 Art District and the Olympic Village and the National Grand Theatre. As always, we savoured the cheap and delicious Chinese food (which was even more delicious after 30 days in Mongolia) and Mike and Neil even treated us to Peking Duck at one of Beijing's most popular restaurants. We finished our trip in style and comfort, a 35-hour trip home, with a night on the floor of the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in Rome.  

The Train to Ulan Bator

I'm not sure that we have ever crossed a border without being cheated in some way. China to Mongolia was no exception. We planned to arrive at the border as early as possible in order to beat customs queues and purchase our onward train ticket once over the border. We had read that we should hire a Mongolian jeep to take us the 7km across the border. Arriving in Erlianhot at 5 a.m., with no Mongolian jeeps around, we settled for a Chinese jeep. Our driver charged us the full border crossing price, but dumped us at the border gates, knowing that it didn't open for another 2.5 hours. We considered getting a taxi into town to have breakfast, but there was no one around, even the Chinese border guards were still asleep. So I killed time by taking pictures and Yann killed time by getting mad at me for taking pictures of a sensitive area. Since we were now jeep-less (and had spent out taxi budget for the day), we decided we would walk the 3km over the border.  As the border opening approached, jeeps began pulling up to queue at the gates. When the border guards finally opened their booths, we pushed our way to the front to purchase pay our "border-use tax" (we had to push even though we had been queueing for about 2 hours more than anyone there). This is when we learned that walking across the border is forbidden.

This was a bit of a disaster because we were now at the mercy of the drivers who were very aware of border regulations and charged the same price to stuff you into their overloaded vehicle for 3km then the train ticket for a 15 hour trip to Ulan Bator.  There would be no negotiating.

I can't remember how many people were stuffed into our soviet jeep, but there was no room for our baggage so it was piled on the hood. We drove slowly as the driver made sure not to lose any of his cargo. We paired up with two other tourists who had made the trip before and we managed to complete the process in just under 2 hours by beating the bus and train passengers to the customs desks.  There was an incredibly minimalist search of vehicles. Arriving in Zamyn Uud Mongolia by 11a.m. we were feeling optimistic. We had until 5:30pm to purchase a ticket for the local train to Ulan Bator. The queue at the train ticket office was small but aggressive. It took all of my focus to keep my place in line. Every Mongolian train ticket has the passenger's name and passport number printed on it manually, making the process fairly slow. When we finally arrived at the front of the line I had the following  conversation with the ticket agent, possibly the most unfriendly woman I've ever encountered:

"Ulan Bator, today, two people"

"No."

"Tomorrow?"

"No."

"After tomorrow?"

"No."

People behind us were getting impatient, and Yann and I were perplexed. We re-read our guidebook: "...then catch the local 5:30pm train to UB." This was supposed to be easy. None of the staff were interested in helping us. Eventually, with the help of two Mongolian women also having no success with ticket purchasing, we were able to get the answers to some of our questions (although not exactly what we wanted to hear). Tickets for local trains could only be purchased on the day of travel. We were told to come back at 7am the next morning. If we wanted to purchase tickets for the (expensive) "Trans-Mongolian International Carriage" we could purchase those at any time. After spending hours at the train station, this option was not that horrible sounding, except that the international train only departed twice a week. We would have to wait 4 days in the tiny, dusty, desert border town before moving onwards. This was a very discouraging prospect.

Zamyn Uud is not much more than two streets, a dozen or so kareoke bars, interspersed between run-down apartment buildings and a few hotels. It seemed like most of the people in Zamyn Uud were waiting for the train out. With a little bit more research on our part, we might have noticed on a map of Mongolia that there are no roads leaving Zamyn Uud (other than the 7km to the Chinese border). We were laughed at by locals when we asked about getting on a local bus to Ulan Bator. Our only way onwards was on a train, or back to China. Most of Mongolia's foreign imports are Chinese. The daily local train linking the Chinese border to the Mongolian capital is basically used by Mongolians to import Chinese goods as cheaply as possible. Every passenger on the Zamyn Uud train platform was waiting with piles of items purchased across the border in China. Watching the 5:30 boarding process was unbelievable. As the train pulled into the station, porters rushed the doors in order to be able to find place on the train for luggage (all overhead as well as under berth storage is taken on a first-come first-serve basis apparently). Police stood on guard trying (unsuccessfully) to prevent fights between passengers fighting for luggage space. As the train pulled off, porters were still leaping out of the train windows after having secured space for their last pieces of luggage. Watching this spectacle, all hopes for getting on the next morning's train faded.

With no other choice, we checked into a grimy, over-priced hotel with questionable structural integrity. Hisashi, the Japanese traveller who had helped us cross the border shared the room with us and showed us to a local restaurant for the "best dinner in Zamyn Uud". After exploring the eerie desert town, we hung out all evening on the stairs of the hotel, a more comforting location than our room. It was here that we met a local woman who could "help us" with our ticket problem. She worked for the local government and would be able to ask around ... for a small fee. As each ticket is assigned to a passenger, she would have to find two passengers willing to give up their tickets, then, with access to the train station official, she could get our names put on the tickets and stamped with the official approval. There was obviously a series of people who would be requiring fees in this process. The cost for this service would be twice the actual price of the tickets (plus the ticket price of course). This meant paying more than  first-class international carriage tickets for second class tickets in the local train. Once again we had planned our trip brilliantly. We still had hope for securing tickets ourselves the next morning, so we passed on her services, but agreed to phone her the next day if we required her help.

Despite arriving at the train station at 7am, we were near the end of the ticket queue. It seemed clear that people had slept on the stairs of the train station. As for the train boarding process, police were on hand to control the crowds. When the doors of the station opened, the queue dissolved. Everyone began running to the second floor ticket office, we followed, rather clumsily.

In the crowded ticket office, we each picked a separate queues and attempted to keep our place in line. This was an extremely challenging task. The crowd was so rowdy that the police resorted to discharging their taser guns in the air!  This happened several times in the short period it took for the train tickets to sell out. We didn't get tickets. We phoned our agent and began the covert ticket buying operation.

By late afternoon, we had secured our triple-priced tickets (with the original ticket holders' names scratched out and replaced with ours) and were waiting for the embarkation process to begin. As locals loaded their satellite dishes, boxes of fresh fruit, mannequins, children's toys, electronics,  we rushed to secure a space on the train for our backpacks. By the time the train took off, every space surrounding our berths was taken up by someone else's cargo. After a fairly stressful 24 hours we were treated to a firey red sunset over the Gobi Desert as we settled comfortably into our berths.

Italy to Inner Mongolia

From Rome we had a flight to Beijing via Doha on Qatar airlines. We were actually a little bit excited for our 10 hour stopover in Qatar, having read good things about hanging out in its luxurious terminal. What we had failed to read was that the Doha airport actually has two terminals. So to our disappointment, we were ushered into the economy class terminal, where we spent our layover in a crowded, run-down building. The only saving grace was the "sleeping room" where I managed to snag a chair and nap for a few hours while Yann guarded our bags.

In Beijing we booked our train tickets into Inner Mongolia. The train heading directly to the border was not for a few days, so we opted to head to Hohhot, the modern capital of the province where we hoped to get onwards transportation  to the Mongolian border.  

We arrived in Hohhot at sunrise and made our way to the ticket counter to get our next ticket. Hoping to leave that same afternoon, I exited the line with a ticket leaving 3 days later. Purchasing a ticket in Chinese is a somewhat stressful process, and by the time I realised that there wasn't a daily train I was already holding the tickets that would have us stranded in Inner Mongolia for the next three days. After considering briefly to return the tickets and take a bus, we decided not to attempt such a tricky ticket operation and to give Hohhot a chance.

Holding a small pamphlet for a Mongolian family's guesthouse that we had grabbed in our Beijing hostel, we left the train station on foot. It took us over an hour to track down the small guesthouse which turned out to be a great place to lounge while waiting for a train. There were many interesting guests, including Sarah and Doriane, a sweet French mother and daughter pair who we spent a lot of time with. Guesthouse aside, Hohhot is not the most beautiful place to visit. It is hot, dusty and definitely not a showcase of Mongolian culture. In typical Chinese Government style, Mongolian culture appears to be valued for nothing more than its potential for mass domestic tourism. Unlike Tibetans, whose cultural assimilation by the Chinese has generated much international attention, the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia as well as many other Chinese minority groups have been waging battles far less visible in the media. Check out www.innermongolia.org Despite the somewhat depressing atmosphere of Hohhot, we made an effort to visit the three cultural sights listed in our guidebook: the Five Pagoda Temple, the Dazhao Temple and the Hohhot Great Mosque. However, the highlight of Hohhot was the Inner Mongolian cuisine, eating out was a pleasure. Our best meal was a "Mongolian Hotpot", a garlicky broth in which you cook your own lamb and vegetables. After what we had heard of actual Mongolian cuisine, we made sure to savour every meal we had in China.