Ulaanbaatar – Beijing by taxi, train, “jeep”, sleeper bus

We got once again train and a usual Kupe to reach the borders and we arrived there early in the morning. Then you have to find quickly some local jeeps that they will pass you from the borders, as no one is allowed to pass on foot. Many hours of waiting as the whole train was embarked in tens of these jeeps that they run almost without petrol, one is pulling the other. Our driver gave his seat to one of the passengers to pass the Chinese borders and he has hidden under our luggages. Probably he had no entry visa, but I was thinking why we had to experience such a stress although we had a legal visa. Tespa …

From Ereen, closest Chinese town to the borders –very freshly planned with huge roads, bike lanes, pavements, roundabouts and only 2,5 million population, a sim city template (15 years old)-, our only solution was a sleeper bus that we were told it takes at least 15 hours to Beijing. No seats, just beds, Chinese size though. 1.50 * 0,50, without exaggeration. And imagine us with our “small” bags on us (all valuables, books and laptop), as we were scared to leave them so many hours with the backpacks in the port-baggage, and above all we had a huge a plastic bag (with some food, candies and alcohol) and a mattress that was on the bed. Nightmare that would last 15 hours!! We only managed to sleep for few hours when we drunk all the Genghis vodka with a Mongolian teacher of geography that he was travelling abroad for the first time. However, his knowledge of basic English and global geography were enough to keep our conversation alive for hours.
One o’ clock in the morning bus stops in a tiny parking and half of the passengers get off. We ask the driver and he replies something like “Beiza” … We thought that it cannot be possible to come 4 hours earlier than we were supposed to, and we stayed in the bus. Around 2am it reached a huge parking lot many km out of the city of Beijing. We realised on the way that we were there, by watching so many highway intersections, gardens with Olympic cycles signs, special Olympic lanes in some roads. Where do you go in a city of 15 million people, some 50km away from the bus station, at 2am and without anyone understanding English?