Crossing the Line
We actually knew that we needed to cross the border in a vehicle. Lord knows why this rule is in effect, it’s basically resulted in an industry of shifty buggers, in old UAV Russian Jeeps, that stake out the border with the express mission of screwing every last cent out of people wanting to cross. Many people went past and wanted way too much money. Even the Mongolian Police are in on the act, they wanted RMB 160 for the two of us, no negotiating!
The Mighty UAV Jeeps of Mongolia
It took us around 40 minutes for us to find someone that would take us, and then the dodgeyness began in ernest. We approached 2 Chinese dudes in a white hatchback who were happy to do the job for RMB 100 flat, we knew this was the “correct” price and engaged their services.
About 2 minutes into the journey and now in the no-mans land with no ability to cross back these jokers inform us that they dont have the correct paperwork and cannot go all the way into Mongolia. Happily no money has changed hands, so we figure we will continue on. We enter the customs building and find that we have to fill in the number plate of the car on our immigration form, but we have no idea what it is, “no problem” says the friendly Chinese border guard, just write 1234! They then go through every single page in my passport, not to check for anything, they just hadn’t seen an Australian passport before and all thought it was a beautiful document, with a friendly pat on the back we were ushered outside and now stood in No Mans Land.
Waiting in no mans land was a different Mongolian dude, who would take us the rest of the way. He already had another passenger, and we all happily sped off to Mongolian customs. We cleared through a very retro health check, it could have been straight out of the 1950’s and made our way into immigration. It turns out that our fellow passenger was traveling on a false document and was swiftly detained for what was undoubtedly severe punishment. Unfortunately for us it also meant that we had lost our ride, but not to worry, we’d been passed to a Mongolian couple that would take us all the way to Zamin Uud. We paid our money, got into the new car and drove off into the wilds of the Gobi desert, with a pumping Mongolian techno soundtrack.
Welcome To Mongolia
After a twelve hour bus ride, 3 – 4 hours squatting in a hotel lobby, a 7km walk, 2 cars and a jeep we had arrived in Zamin Uud, Mongolia.