We were up out of our beds at 7.30am, we already packed our bags the night before & organised our digital documents. At Leo's Hostel we have met a fellow traveller called Jordan who is from the USA & is also going to Mongolia. We all get along so its not much of a decision that we all decide to make our way to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia together.
We take one last walk through the street our hostel is on and eat a crepe for breakfast. It feels strange to be leaving Beijing. We've been here for a week now & it's one of our favourite places in China. We hail a cab & get to the Muxiyuan long distance bus station were we are meant to buy our overnight sleeper tickets. When we arrive the bus station is shut! We had read lots of blogs about 'gypsy bus services' that take passengers and goods to the border. It's not long before a Chinese lady approaches us waving a card & yelling "Erlian Erlian " at us. We barter on the price & agree to 220Yuan. We're pretty happy with this, our bus ticket at the station would have been around 200 Yuan & we had read a few blogs from other travellers who had to take gypsy bus service & paid up to 260 Yuan for the ticket. The gypsy bus service is essentially the same thing as the official bus service, its just not registered through China Travel services & is slightly more expensive but the same service.
We follow this lady for about 10 minutes, away from the official station, to a big parking lot where the the bus's are parked & pay the deposit for the ticket.
We are then led to a small room for waiting that has chairs, beds & a kettle for making tea or noodles. We settle in for a day of time wasting as the bus doesn't leave till 5pm. We have read several other blogs of other people doing this and everyone has said to expect to wait and to leave later than expected.
Tom & Jordan make a special trip to get beers while I read my book. At 5.10pm we put our big packs on to the bus & continue waiting to depart. All of a sudden at 6.40pm we were told to "go go go" and made our way to the bus. We had beds at the back of the bus, in bed numbers 29, 30 & 31.
I was pleasantly surprised with the size, bedding & aircon.
Our bus slowly started to move at 6.44pm & after 7 hours & 45 minutes waiting around, we were on our way to Erlian!
At 8.23pm we drove past a section of the Great Wall that was lit up from below. It was a magical sight, the lighting showed the walls journey winding up the mountains either side of the road.
The bus had a stop at a service station just after 10pm. Shortly after this is when I fell asleep. During the night the bus stops twice more but I'm too comfortable to want to get out of my bed. The total trip time we read could be anything from 10 - 12 hours depending on how many stops the bus has to take.
Our bus slowly started to move at 6.44pm & after 7 hours & 45 minutes waiting around, we were on our way to Erlian!
At 8.23pm we drove past a section of the Great Wall that was lit up from below. It was a magical sight, the lighting showed the walls journey winding up the mountains either side of the road.
The bus had a stop at a service station just after 10pm. Shortly after this is when I fell asleep. During the night the bus stops twice more but I'm too comfortable to want to get out of my bed. The total trip time we read could be anything from 10 - 12 hours depending on how many stops the bus has to take.
- Alli
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