The Train

Getting from Mongolia to Russia was very entertaining. We arrived in our cabin and put our stuff away. Later a few people dropped by and left bags on the two other beds in our room. At four in the morning a woman arrived in our room making a lot of noise. The next day we had to get up early to pass customs. A second person appeared in the room and so began their attempts to smuggle things across the border. Mongolian customs didn't really care about anything but it took almost the whole day to get through the order. In that time the two ladies in our room had taken four bags filled with new wrapped up clothes and stuffed them just about everywhere. They unwrapped, crumpled up and threw some on Brian's bed to look like they were his clothes. They stuffed some up their tops. They hid them in every hidey hole in the room. They even hid a few shirts around their ankles under their trousers. Russian customs was significantly more thorough. They checked the whole carriage for drugs (with big fluffy German Shepherds) and then army guys searched it for people. The whole thing took much longer than the China to Mongolia border crossing and we were soon sick of our new friends and the fact they continually touched and moved stuff (both ours and their). Once they got to Russia they got off and we were left in peace to reach our destination.