Ulaanbaatar to Beijing Train (Last Leg of the Trans-Mongolian)

When taking the TransMongolian train trip from Moscow to Beijing, you can’t miss the last leg – the Ulaanbaatar to Beijing Train.

The Ulaanbaatar train station is not far from the center of town.  It’s worth arriving a little early to have a look around this Soviet-style train station.

We checked in and were shown our 2nd class cabin.  In Russia, 2nd class is the middle class.  In Mongolia, it’s the worst class.  The trains in Mongolia were much nicer than Russia. We had 4 beds and a locking door, which we shared with a French couple.

The train makes it’s way through the Gobi desert, but this portion of the desert is not as photogenic as the portions we visited on our 7 day trip to the Gobi.  We had one longer stop in a Gobi town on the train route.  The town has a statue for the first Mongolian cosmonaut.

We stopped for quite a few hours on the Mongolia/China border so they could change the wheels since track sizes vary in the two countries.

The scenery changed considerably in China.  No more flat desert but trees, mountains, and water.

Traveled Aug, 2012

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