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| Trapped inside the train, the border crossing from China into Mongolia took place from 8:30 p.m. to 2:40 a.m. - 6 hours. The excitement of the evening was to be the changing of the bogies, switching from the international standard gauge to the Russian gauge rail. The distance between the two rails is 3 inches larger in Russia. The train cars are lifted up with aid of an industrial sized jack. One by one the gauge is switched out with the Chinese wheels taken off and the Russian size put on, an arduous process that took over 2 hours during which time natures calls could not be answered. It’s now 11:30 we are tired and would like to catch some shut eye but there is a whole list of people still to come. Chinese officials wearing surgical masks and protective clothing come by and take our temperature by placing an old-fashioned mercury thermometer under our arm. The price passengers must pay for vistitng China during a SARS epidemec. Later, at midnight, a separate Chinese official comes by with the customs forms and at 12:30 yet another official comes by to stamp the “Chinese exit”in our passport. The military clad in surgical masks and full uniform storm the train in formation, opening floor boards and light fixtures to check for commonly smuggled goods. The soldiers/customs officials come by and inspect each room individually, lifting up our beds and checking our overhead storage areas. We are tired and trying to go to sleep now, but the people keep coming, lights on, lights off, door opening and closing and opening again, it was a disorganized process and a little frustrating. It seems as though the Chinese officials could have made all those official visits of paperwork and temperature taking while the bogies we being changed, as only one cars was up in the air at a time. It is now 1:00 am in the morning and the train rolls what seems to be about 300 feet over to the Mongolian side of the boarder. The boarder crossing is only half over, now it is Mongolia’s turn. A woman dressed in full chemical weapon attire boards to check our temperature again with a mercury thermometer under the armpit. Tophers did not register as she wanted it to; so, she took his temperature again with a second thermometer. A few minutes later she comes in to check the results; she shakes her head and storms out. A second women comes in with another thermometer to try a third time, she demands Topher’s passport, pushes him down on the bed, pointing to the thermometer in his pit and leaves with his passport in hand. Our hearts are pounding, we cannot communicate with these people accept for charades and it seems to be getting a little too serious for charades. Christopher begins to wonder if they are going to take him into a Mongolian quarantine facility, and figure out the facts later. We get up and look out our cabin door to peer down the hallway, the women in the chemical outfit and the other female official are talking, the first women is shaking her head “no” and pointing to Tophers passport. I am locating our emergency contact numbers for Mongolia and wondering if they will let me off too, or will they let us take our bags, it was a scary situation. Fortunately, we had a digital thermometer in our backpack, I got it out and his temperature only read 96.6, it is LOW. So we guessed they were not leaving the thermometer in him armpit long enough to register a correct body temperature. Again the women with the mask marches into our cabin, reads the thermometer, gives Christopher a disturbed look, she walks away and moments later comes back the other official. A forth thermometer is placed in his armpit, she leaves for a ten minutes when she returns to read it, she gives us back the passport, turns and leaves. We did not know, however, if it was over of not, she said nothing, not even a nod or an o.k. It is now 2:00 a.m., the temperature taking seemed to be over we shut our eyes to get some rest, and “bang” the cabin door swings open again. This time it is a Mongolian representative with a customs declaration card. We fill it out and settle back down. Next, our cabin attendant barges in for us to fill out a form with our name, address, tour company name and passport number, she leaves. Again the door slams open, standing before us wearing an obscenely tall black captain’s hat, high black boots and military uniform with skirt is the immigration official. A few stamps in the passport later, it is now 2:40 a.m. and we are finally done with this most disorganized fiasco of a border crossing. I guess we were lucky to get into Mongolia at all, considering we were arriving from SARS infested China. So, from that perspective, as is well that ends well. |
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