Beijing to Ulaan Baatar

Anna and I caught a taxi to the train station, which wasn't as easy as it should be. I think I've mentioned it before but for some reason in Beijing you can't call a cab, you have to go out and flag one down. The first guy we flagged down didn't want to take us. With the next guy we resorted to our Phan Thiet trick, we get in and then tell them where we are going. The train station is huge, but oddly quiet. There was almost no one in the main concourse has you have a separate waiting room for each platform. You have to stay in the waiting room until you are allowed out to the platform. The tunnel to our platform was totally empty and very long. I don't ever want to have to run for a train, especially with a backpack.
We get on the train and find out that we are sharing a compartment with a couple, Paul and Suzie. Not great but I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. The train left two minutes early, I had no problem with that. It was a lovely morning so I spent it exploring the train and saying hello to my fellow passengers. It seemed to be mostly westerners in our carriage. The next two carriages were the first class ones, they were nice. The compartments are just for two people and they have their own private washroom. I can do with the washroom, I,unfortunately, am getting used to not washing when I am on the train! Anna and I went to the restaurant car and pretty much had a lazy day. Unfortunately we had another night border crossing. We reached the Chinese border at about 11.30pm and had to get off the train. Luckily the station, which we couldn't really leave, had a shop, so we bought beer and some snacks. We settled into the waiting room and played some cards. We were there a couple of hours. When the Chinese authorities decided to let us go we travelled down the tracks a bit further, through an arch bidding us a fond farewell from China and onto the Mongolian border crossing. We spent another hour here but didn't have to get off. Unfortunately when the train is stopped the conductor locks the toilets. This can be an issue for me. We were all done by 01.30 and I was in Mongolia. Now I could go to bed, we weren't due to arrive into Ulaan Baatar until 1.30 in the afternoon so I could catch up on my sleep. Anna tried to move to an empty compartment, but the conductor said no so it was back to sharing with Paul and Suzie. Despite this I slept well and Paul was kind enough to say that he hadn't heard me snoring in the night.
The next morning we had a random stop for a couple of hours at some station whose name I couldn't read and probably couldn't pronounce either! Then I noticed that the train was shorter then when we left Beijing and the restaurant car had been changed from Chinese rolling stock to Mongolian. The inside was very different. The Chinese carriage had been all white formica, the Mongolian was all carved wood with bows and arrows on the wall. I definitely prefer the Mongolian one! The closer we got to Ulaan Baatar the more scenery changed. When I had woken up the countryside was very arid and scrubby, desert I guess. Whenever the windows were open you got sand blasted and everything in the compartment was covered with it. This changed to rolling grasslands and more signs of human habitation. When we got really close to UB I saw my first tree in Mongolia. We arrived about an hour late but I was just glad to have arrived. Hopefully our guide for our tour would still be waiting for us.