Day 41 - Mongolia Tour. Yol Valley - Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park

We awoke at a similar time as the previous day, around 6am. I can see a pattern forming with our sleeping hours mimicking the suns descent & rise.

Breakfast is served at 8am & the cat joins us in our ger where she begs for some egg, acting so sweet & cute, only to reject every piece of food offered to her. We leave camp at around 9am and set off on a dirt road, today we leave the Central Gobi Province & enter the Southern Gobi Province. We stopped at a small city at 1pm for lunch & more supplies. As we head off after lunch a sand storm, followed by a rain storm rolls in. With nothing much outside the van windows I have a nap. Tom wakes me up only 40 minutes after I fall asleep, we have arrived at the next ger camp! It's only 3pm though. We are soon told to put on our 'cold' clothes cause we are going to see a glacier, tucked up in between a mountain range. At first I think our guide is joking, how could there be a glacier in the desert ?

In the middle of the Gobi desert, lies a deep and narrow gorge in the Gurvan Saikhan Mountain that holds a permanent ice glacier that is several meters thick and several kilometers long. It is well hidden from people & protected from the sun by the mountains & requires you to trek a few kilometres before encountering the ice. Walking on it, sometimes hearing it crack under foot was super cool.

The ice sheet & the surrounding mountains are absolutely stunning! The mountains have new shoots of grass & clumps of ever green Juniper can be seen.

We walk along the ice sheet for a few kilometers before deciding to turn back. There are little streams running next to & underneath the ice sheet, the gurgling of water under foot is a little bit scary & very exhiliratung. On our way back we see a herd of stocky, little Mongolian horses standing on a section of ice. It was a glorious sight. It feels like a lot of the photos captured in those moments represent Mongolia & its incredible, hidden beauty.

Once we arrive back at the camp, Tom unpacks the car & dispenses drinks for himself & Jordan while I go to make friends with the resident animals. A nightly ritual I get a lot of joy out of. I approach a scruffy white goat & squat down to give her some love, only to discover she is completely covered in ticks!! I realise all the sheep and goats are covered in ticks. Feeling slightly disappointed I retire to our ger where we start to drink beer & teach Jordan card games & drinking rules we use in Australia.

Day 40 - Mongolia Tour. Tsangaan Suvraga (White Stupa)

Day 2 on tour.

We were woken at 6.30am by knocking on the ger from the oldest lady in the family, she appeared to be a grandmother figure for the young girl. She came into our ger to get the hot water flask & restart our fire. It was a relatively cold night, hard to know exactly what temperature but definitely in the negatives. We were told that overnight some of the baby goats had died from the cold & from huddling together & getting squashed by bigger members of the herd.

We left the camp just after 9am, enough time to eat breakfast, have a baby wipe shower, pack & say goodbye to the goats & sheep that were still hanging around. Before leaving we gave a block of chocolate to the nomadic family as a thank you. I definitely need to practice the basic Mongolian words! My English tongue is still struggling to pronounce them & I am quite shy. This seems to be a source of amusement for the nomads, they are all laughs & smiles as they accept the chocolate & wish us safe travels. As we leave the camp in our van we see some wild gazelle bounding away in the distance.

                                                              The inside of a ger

We drive the whole morning off road & enter a small city to buy warm clothes for Jordan. After leaving the city we are driving back on bitumen roads, a small relief despite the vans amazing suspension. We continue driving for another hour or so, the warm air in the van & the motion of the driving sends us off to sleep. When we wake up its lunch time! We have stopped at a rest stop with a restaurant, service station & an outside toilet hole facing the road & no doors for privacy. I've already drunk nearly a litre of water with no hope of hanging on after lunch, I decide to brave the toilets after eating & station Tom on guard outside. In all honesty, it's a lot cleaner & less scary than some of the porcelain toilets I used in China.

After lunch we set off again in the van. The landscape is consistent and hasn't really changed much. The dirt is a lighter brown, it's very dry with lots of small whirly winds appearing, small tufts of dead grass & it's slightly less open with more hills. There is still the occasional granite rock & unfortunately still the frequent sighting of dead live stock. Another thing we noticed yesterday & today is empty glass vodka bottles lying on the sides of all roads from fully established bitumen to the faintest dirt trail. It seems to be the only noticable rubbish we see. We are told its tradition particularly with the nomadic men to drink & share a lot of vodka. At approximately 3pm we drove past a lost lamb on the side of the road, Jackie did a U-turn & we drove back to 'rescue' it. We were told lambs have a habit of sleeping on the ground & not realizing the herd is moving on, then they wake up all alone & lost.

Jackie was easily able to catch it & then it sat quietly on my lap while we drove through the desert looking for its flock. They hadn't gone too far, only a couple of kilometers. As I walked towards the herd, the lamb started to bleat & was very happy to be reunited with its mother.

At 3.45pm we once again leave the bitumen road & follow a faint track through the dirt.
We saw a large herd of 2 hump camels, the biggest herd we had seen yet. We stopped the van to get out & take photos. The camels were making the most ridiculous wailing noises & they had a lot of calves that were tied up. The nomadic families tie up the young camels to a section of the ground to keep them safe, this also guarantees the adults will come back to feed their young twice a day. The nomadic families will also milk the lactating camels. We could see a few of the bigger Male camels had sections of their winter wool shaved off, normally from under their necks & front legs. Camel wool is sold for approximately $4 USD a kilo & is a huge part of the Mongolian economy. Mongolia also is a huge manufacturer of cashmere, which is the blonde wool from a specific breed of camel. the wool for cashmere sells for approximately $50 USD a kilo.

As we were about to leave a nomadic farmer on a dirt bike (also the owner of the camels) pulled up next to the van. We were told about traditional nomadic greetings. Its polite to greet each other & then enquire about how they are going in relation to the season, how their herds are going & if they are fat, how is the rain & how grows the grass.
The nomadic man was very excited about where we were from & where we were going. It was also explained that nomadic families welcome visitors to their ger & if they are expecting to be away from their ger for a long period of time they will leave the ger open for any visitors & will also leave out tea and meat. It's such a trusting & sharing culture !!

We stopped at a place called the Tsangaan Suvraga (White Stupa) or The White Cliff a fantastic limestone bluff, where we got to climb down and take some photos of the amazing cliff formations, and various coloured seams exposed in the hills.

We arrived at the ger camp just after 6pm, the weather feels warmer possibly cause the camp is more sheltered. We are greeted by 4 large, fluffy black guard dogs with tails wagging. There are 5 gers set up here & we are invited into the families ger this time. It is quite impressive, with many luxury & comfort items. By far the biggest ger we have seen yet, it has linoleum on the floor & 3 different mats, 5 single beds, a distinct kitchen area with tables, bench's, a hand washing sink & cooking utensils. A Buddhist shrine could be seen opposite the door, with blue Mongolian prayer scarfs tied to some of the roof rafters. The individual rafters also had paintings on them & there was a mirror on the wall. In one little section which seemed to be the technology section there was a battery connected to several appliances such as a telephone, TV, & multiple mobile phone chargers. There is also a dirty torteshell cat playing inside & smooching the nomadic people. They seem more fond of their domestic animals than the previous nomadic family & the animals are obviously more affectionate. We were made milk tea & given biscuits with the whole family, there was about 10 members from 3 generations.

After spending time with the family we went outside to see the goats & sheep while watching the sun set. The adult animals were still grazing in the hills, while the young sheep & goats were confined in a large pen. The poor little goats were only a few weeks old & they were skinny to touch & ravenously hungry. They were obsessiantly sucking on our clothes, boot laces, fingers & the end of my plait. I sit down on a rock and cuddle a few of them while waiting for their mothers to come back & feed them.

Winter has been hard on the animals. Walking around the perimeter of the camp we saw multiple dead baby animals. It was also hard watching a young sheep with short irregular hind legs trying to find its mother, we assume it has a birth deformity. There was also a young goat with a broken leg, swinging in the breeze as it hopped past. I can't help but feel sorry for them & wonder about their fate, life is already hard enough out here. The sun goes down just before 8pm & we eat dinner shortly after that. We are then spoilt when one of the young boys plays a few songs on a traditional Mongolian instrument. The name of the instrument in Mongolian is Morin Khuur & translates to; horses whining, or also known as a horse fiddle.

Another perfect end to the day.

- Alli

Day 39 - Mongolia Tour. Baga Gazariin Chuluu

Day 1 of our Mongolian tour!

I awoke at 5am, from the time difference & also from excitement. I washed my hair, woke Tom at 6.30am & packed 1 bag to share between us.
We met our driver, his name is Jackie & our guide is named Undra both of them seem very happy, approachable & friendly. We hear our vehicle pull up outside from 4 floors up. It's a Russian model 4WD Van & looks reliable, comfortable & very cool!

We were due to leave our Mongolian Guesthouse at 9.30am, before we left our host sprinkled fresh goats milk onto all 4 tyres, the steps & the front of the van. An old superstitious act that wards off bad luck & protects the car & its occupants from harm. We started to drive through the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar stopping off for food & fuel. Our guide explained there is 3.2 million people in Mongolia with half of the population now living in & around Ulaanbaatar. She explained she was born in Zamiin Uud, her family still lives there but she prefers Ulaanbaatar. Ulaanbaatar has showed off with another beautiful, clear & sunny day, initially at 5am it was a crisp temperature of -3, with a top of 16 promised later in the day. As we drive through the town, you can see an assortment of gers (traditional Mongolian houses) & houses constructed from various materials, a lot of second hand, mismatched material. Definitely nothing like the shanty towns I have seen in Asia & Africa, some of these dwellings have garages, fences, chimneys, satellite discs & some are 2 & 3 stories high. We can see the mountains on the outskirts of town and a powerplant burning away. It's also nice to see a large section of land occupied by solar panels. 20 minutes outside of Ulaanbaatar, we see herds of stocky goats, sheep, horses & camels still scruffy with their thick winter coats. We can also see large birds of prey dominating the blue skies. The brown dirt soon gives way to sparse grass as we leave Ulaanbatar behind & head into the Gobi Desert.

Were heading into the central Gobi province to a place called Baga Gazariin Chuluu. It's all amazing open plains & vast untamed wilderness already. Our exhiliration is palpable! While driving we were told about how its a superstitious belief that if you try and say what time you will arrive that something bad will happen. Mongolians have 3 times; morning, afternoon & evening.

 Just before lunch the landscape changes again, there wasn't anymore grass, nor did the earth appear dry. The temperature dropped & we could see ice on the side of the road & up the hills. The animals looked skinnier & we started to see dead livestock, victims of the fiercely cold winter.

Our driver put on the radio at this point & selected Akons album from the early 2000's, something we hadn't heard in a long time. At 12.30pm we pulled over in the middle of nowhere & our driver started fiddling with the engine, another tour van also from the same company as ours pulled over & their driver assisted. We speculated it was a problem with a fuel pump or the carberhator. It must be a common problem, he had 4 others of the same spare part & it didn't take too long to fix. Lucky we're on Mongolian time now & it's really hard to be late!

At 1pm we stopped at a Mongolia restaurant for lunch. We had Traditional Mongolian Pasta & Mongolian Mutton soup with a cup of coffee. Both dishes were delicious, especially the pasta which was fresh.
While eating, a Mongolian man walked in wearing the traditional nomad attire, called a dell. A big heavy red coat that went down to his knees & was cinched at the waist with a gold cloth belt. An olive green hat, similar to a bonnet in design though it tied on to itself, instead of under his chin & big black boots. Our guide explained this is ideal for horse riding in Mongolia as it keeps you warm. He looked like the first Nomadic Mongolian we would see. He was very big in stature & had a face full of wrinkles with very dark sun exposed skin. He was impressive & kinda scary. Not for the first time I thought about how terrifying it would have been to fight the Mongols in ancient times.

Shortly after lunch the van turned off the bitumen road & we followed a faint dirt track winding through the hills. The landscape started to change again revealing large collections of granite formation & mountains. We were shown a cave and told a story about conflict in the past between Russia & Mongolia. As a result a lot of remote communities of Mongolians were hunted out & murdered. Some were able to hide & survive in caves that went 17 meters down, such as the one we were shown.

After the cave we drove another few kilometers to be shown a sacred place for Buddhist worship in Mongolia. There are 2 dwellings from the 13th century that still have walls standing, despite only being made of rocks & mud. The 2 monks who built the structures were buried in the area after they died. There was a slightly more recent dwelling from the 17th century also in the area. It has become a sacred area for annual Buddhist worship, lots of blue prayer scarves representing the blue Mongolian skies can be seen tied to trees. The mongolians also pile rocks together to make a tower. They then pick up smaller rocks & make 3 circles with the arm & hand that also contains the rocks, while praying & walking around the rock tower & finally releasing the rocks.

After we saw the holy place we could climb up some rock formations to admire the view & sit in the sun & wind. It was glorious, I felt so free.

Around 6pm we arrived at the Ger camp we would spend the night in. There was a nomadic family with 2 gers to themselves & 3 spare. Tom, Jordan & myself had 1 Ger to ourselves. Inside was 5 single size beds, linoleum on the floor, an enclosed fireplace between the central structural beams & a light that could be connected to a solar powered battery. It was bigger & warmer than I expected. The structure is made of wood which is covered in animal skin, lots of wool & various fabric materials hold it all together. It is finished with a white, waterproof plastic wrap on the outside.

After setting up our stuff we venture outside where we are met by 2 lazy, white & gray cats & 1 large black dog. Lots of sheep, goats & horses can be seen in the distance. Shortly after we met a little mongolian girl, I would guess her age at 4, who was running around with 5 little goats. She was particularly fond of a little brown & black one that she would pick up & put on people. The goats really didn't seem too fussed about it, they were very happy to follow her around & play with her. As a result of these interactions at a young age, the adult sheep & goats are very comfortable with being handled & having consistent close interaction. We spent quite a while playing with the little girl & her families flock of animals while waiting for the sun set.
Just before the sun set the entire nomadic family emerged & set off in various directions on motorbikes, shortly after there was an abundance of animals around. The baby animals are herded into a sheltered enclosure & fed. This guarantees the adults stay close while also protecting & sheltering the young. The sun set just after 8pm & was a perfect end to a great day in the gobi desert.

 We fell asleep just before 10pm with the sounds of the animals moving between the gers & vocalising. There was also some naughty goats that were ripping the outer layers of the ger & playing on piles of wood which we could hear & that intermittently woke us during the night. 

- Alli  

Day 38 - Ulaanbaatar

Ulaanbaatar,

We arrived at Ulaanbaatar station just before 9am, we were all feeling reasonably well rested & I feel slightly better than the previous day, hopefully I can keep my cold at bay with paracetamol. The weather outside was a crisp 3 degrees, with only a slight breeze, the sun was out and for the first time in weeks we could see a blue sky, it was glorious! We walked along the platform & a Mongolian man in a  red cap passed me a brochure for the very same guesthouse we were already booked to stay  at! He was so quick I didn't realise he had given me a brochure and it took me a few seconds before I read it. Realising what it was, Tom chased him down & he led us off the platform and to the carpark where a lady was waiting with a big bold sign that clearly read Tom's name. It was a nice surprise and a relief to have a lift back to our accommodation.

We are staying in a guesthouse with a local family who also organise a lot of the tours around Mongolia, a reason we had booked this accomodation. An hour after arriving we had discussed our different tour options & had agreed on a 15 day tour that covered everything in Mongolia we wanted to see.
When researching countries, we intentionally plan to come to each country during the shoulder month's before and after the tourism season. Its not always ideal weather, but we have the time to be patient for ideal weather & we have been really lucky so far. Travelling to countries in the shoulder season means there is more availability for accommodation, transport, lower prices on everything, less crowds & more competition for tours. If we had come to Mongolia and booked the tour during the busy season it would have cost us $88 USD, because of the time of year it is only going to cost us $66 USD. An absolute bargain. We read many recommendations about booking tours directly In Mongolia from locals as opposed to booking a tour online from some company that is based in the States or in Europe. This particular company & their guest house has lots of really good reviews and is recommended by trip advisor. I feel like we are in good hands.  The tour includes an english speaking guide who also is the driver, car, fuel, 3 meals a day, 1.5L of water per person, accommodation and all of our entry tickets and included activities, just to name a few vital thing's. The only thing we need to buy is alcohol & gifts for the traditional nomadic families we will be sharing accommodation with.

Our tour leaves bright & early tomorrow! We have less than a day to explore Ulaanbaatar, we quickly shower and get ready for a small amount of exploring & to do a few small mission's such as find a laundromat & withdraw US currency, to pay for our tour.
Ulaanbaatar at first glance is quite nice, what you would expect from a booming city in the desert, there's a lot of statues, restaurants, shopping,  construction and new buildings. There is less hustle and bustle from people, we have to remind ourselves we are not in China anymore and that the cities are less densely populated.  It appears a lot cleaner than most cities in China & there is the obvious lack of pollution haze (though we were told it can be bad due to the burning of coal) there also seems to be dramatically less people smoking cigarettes, with some public places displaying notices for fines if you are caught smoking within the vicinity.  I haven't seen or heard a single person spit. Spitting is an unavoidable, frequent & acceptable habit that you hear and see from just about every person in China.

After an hours walking through Ulaanbaatar we stopped so the boys could have a local beer at an Irish pub, we have seen many Irish pubs in Ulaanbaatar. It was a very enjoyable way to spend the afternoon. We then went to the bank & waited quite a while for our turn. I used this opportunity to order a coffee, much more reasonable in Ulaanbaatar, only $3 AUD & I was very happy with the strength & taste! I get the feeling that Mongolians understand coffee better than the Chinese!
It was then time to pack our bags for our next adventure, 15 days on tour through the Gobi Desert & Central Mongolia with limited to no electricity, no wi-fi & only 4 showers over the 15 days. The only way to fully immerse yourself in a rapidly dying culture of nomadic wandering.

We literally couldn't be any more excited as we lied in bed, waiting for sleep to take hold of us.
Cya later civilisation!

- Alli

Day 37 - Erlian - Ulaanbaatar

Erlian - Ulaanbaatar,

Today is the day we cross the border and finally enter Mongolia, Thank Goodness as our Chinese Visa expires tonight at 12am (we run on a very tight schedule).
We leave our hotel in Erlian at 8.45am, shoulder our packs & walk through the town to the city centre where the jeeps wait to take passengers and good's across the border. This is the only way to go across the border on weekend's, during the week you can buy a bus ticket or if you are on the Trans-siberian railway it will include your border crossing. The border between China and Mongolia can not be walked across.  We find a man who agrees to take us across the border for 75Yuan, in his old, dark blue, Toyota Land cruiser, a car that has made this journey many many times! We fit Tom, Jordan & myself, plus our luggage, another man who looks Mongolian & a whole boot load of box's and packages into the car & set off for the border. It only takes us 10 minutes to get to the Chinese border, our passports are checked by armed guards who are particularly interested in Toms passport and ask him where he is from.  We then drive through the gates & hop out of the car to walk into immigration, the car and its cargo drive through immigration and meet us on the other side. The Chinese immigration was very easy & quick only taking a couple of minutes to get our Visa's stamped & walk through to the other side. We get back into the car and drive another 5 minutes thorough 'no mans land' before arriving at the Mongolian immigration, again we make our way through immigration by foot. The Mongolian immigration took about 30 minutes and then we had to exchange our Chinese YUAN for Mongolian MNT. On our way out of the border crossing at the last gate, the guards once again took a particular interest in Tom's passport, but let us through with no problems.

The first town we came to in Mongolia is called Zamiin Uud, also spelt Zamyn Uud, which is only another 5 minute drive past the border crossing.
That's all the hard stuff done on this leg of the journey! We make our way to the train station and buy a ticket for the overnight train from Zamiin Uud to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. We then try to make ourselves busy, we have a 5 hour wait before we board our train. As I am still feeling terrible from a cold, this time is spent sleeping on a chair in the station while Tom watches Netflix & Jordan does some exploring of the little town.

Our train pulls up to the station at 5pm, an old train, very different to the ones we have caught in China, this one is coal powered and is spewing lots of horrible black smoke onto it's eager passengers waiting to board.  We hop on the train and easily find our bunks, we are in carriage 9 and are beds 1, 3 & 4. The carriage is a lot bigger, cleaner and more comfortable than the trains we took in china, I am thrilled to see that there is a women's & a men's toilet and that the women's toilet is a normal sitting toilet, immaculately clean! I was also very happy when we all received a cup of hot water and some sachets for coffee, green tea and milk tea. 

We settled in for the night. I was able to stay awake for a few hours, the sun is now starting to set closer to 8pm allowing sunset views of the vast, dry Gobi desert, still unaware that it was technically spring. The landscape seems so eternal & just keeps going on & on until your eyes can't seem to focus anymore. Once the sun had set, a beautiful crescent moon could be seen in the sky, casting silver on the landscape. It was very beautiful.

We woke up a few times overnight as the train stopped and started, letting people off and on. It was mostly a full night of sleep.

- Alli

Day 36 - Arriving At Erlian / Erenhot & The Dinosaur Museum

Arriving At Erlian / Erenhot & The Dinosaur Museum

We arrived at Erlian / Erenhot at 6.40am & got off the bus in the centre of town, in a totally different place to where we had read the bus would likely drop us off. Unable to speak their language or look at a bus route time table means we were only guided by what we had read on blogs from other travellers who had taken the gypsy bus service. Only a couple of people spoke Chinese on our bus. We heard various different Mongolian dialects, Russian, English & South Korean, these are the languages that are used the most in Mongolia.

When we arrived it was also raining. We started to walk along what we thought was the main road before giving up,  hailing a taxi & asking the driver to take us to a hotel. We weren't able to find any websites for booking accommodation in Erlian, which was also something we had read in blogs but we knew we weren't travelling in peak season so there should be plenty of availability. The first hotel had space and we were able to book a big room, with 2 beds, 1 bed for myself & Tom, another bed for Jordan and a pretty big bathroom. It was just for 24 hours, we didn't mind sharing & it reduced the cost. I was showered and in bed by 7.30am where I had another 3 hours sleep. When I woke up on the bus my throat, eyes and nose were congested &nfelt like they were on fire, unsurprisingly as the aircon probably recycles the air from the 31 passengers, a lot of whom were sneezing and coughing.  I was prepared for this and took some paracetamol and did a butadiene throat gargle. After my extra hours of sleep I felt much better.

The town of Erenhot, named form the Mongolian's is also called Erlianhaote by the Chinese, which is also shortened to Ereen, or Erlian.  Because we caught the bus from the Chinese side in Beijing it was called Erlian. This is very confusing and not the first time we have encountered this in China. Erlian is a town in the Gobi Desert, still technically in China, but also inner Mongolia. It lies just on the border between China & Mongolia.

When researching our border crossing options in Australia, we  decided to spend 1 day & 1 night in Erlian to break up the 3 day journey into Mongolia & also to check out the towns dinosaur fossils! It turns out that both Tom & I had a love of dinosaurs as kids and had avidly watched the 'walking with dinosaurs' documentary series.  The area around the town and a salt lake to the east called Iren Dabasu are well known by palaeontologists who have discovered a number of different dinosaur and mammal fossils.  Erlian houses a very impressive dinosaur museum and around the city various life size dinosaur statues can be seen, 20 minutes outside of town there is a dinosaur Geopark that contains fossils and life size dinosaur figures.
Because of the rain and my impending sickness we decided to just go to the indoor dinosaur museum which was a 30Yuan taxi ride.

We weren't disappointed. The entrance from the Museum was impressive with huge dinosaur figurines, marble steps and huge wooden doors that housed a large dome room. We walked in and the place was totally empty! It was so nice to walk through the museum without any crowds. Inside the dome room they have done a great job of replicating what it would be like to walk with dinosaurs. There is plants, HUGE life like dinosaurs that come alive as you walk past, including a tetradactyl that flies around, realistic dinosaur noises, fossils protected behind glass and information stands. It was very cool, our inner child was deliriously happy to be finally 'walking with dinosaurs'.
After we had spent enough time at the museum we started to walk back to our accommodation, thankfully after only a few minutes a taxi pulled up & we paid 10 Yuan to get back.  After we got back to our accommodation we went out to find some dinner & all agreed on a sober, early night in.

- Alli

Day 35 - Beijing to Erlian / Erenhot (Inner Mongolia)

Beijing to Erlian / Erenhot (Inner Mongolia)

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. 

- Alli