Trans Mongolian Railway stage 1 - Beijing to Ulaan Baator

On the K23 train - at last.

Auspicious beginnings: We got our compartment (a four-berth) to ourselves. Score.

Mostly we just stay in our little cabin. We have sweet snacks and music. We venture out for an exploration of the train and a check out the back window. The track runs away behind us. We find the dining cart - it is utilitarian and unlovely. But we have a tasty egg and tomato and rice dinner then scuttle back to our small home for the night.

Outside Northern China slowly dissolves into desert: portions of the Great Wall, hilltop temples, huge windfarms drift past our view.

It's a 36-hour journey from the capital of China to the capital of Mongolia. We cross the border in the middle of the night - woken by customs and immigration officials on either side.

We also experience a two-hour "bogie changing" ritual - where they change the guage on the train from the larger Chinese type to the smaller Mongolian gauge - used only in Mongolia and Russia apparently. They have to detach each carriage and then lift it into the air and change the wheels - the whole process is done with the passengers on board and is an endless series of whistles and jolts and clicks and slams and then whistles again. It feels like being inside a transformer (like a big one, like Metroplex or Omega Supreme) as it transforms.

We wake to see the sun rise over the Gobi desert. It stretches out for epic miles of dust and grass and emptiness. There are occasional herds of cattle or sheep and small clusters of gers but otherwise nothing. There are subtle changes in the colours of the desert and sky as the train glides through - a muted yet dramatic kalaidescope. It is all so wide and huge. Who knew the horizon could be so far away.

We leave our cabin for breakfast and find the sterile dining car of last night has metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly. Somehow during the bogie changing ceremony they must have switched out the Chinese dining car for a Mongolian one. It is a wonderous surprise. Gone are the white tablecloths and formica walls. Instead, there is intricate wood carving adorning the walls, ceiling and tables. The carriage glows with the gold of the wood. Carvings of stags and other wild beasts of the steppe further decorate the carriage. We have breakfast and linger over another coffee and chat with other travellers, who arrive with our exact same happy surprise mirrored on their faces. We don't want to leave the car. We have a beer. It is a great morning.

 The Gobi slowly melts into a slightly more fertile Mongolian Steppe. Hills begin to roll more and more, every 3 k or so a rail worker is burning the grass by the track, don't ask me why, perhaps to discourage the cattle from impaling themselves on the fence? There sure are a lot of cattle bones by the fence.

Then we sense the hanging fog out there in the middle of nowhere. The hills go on forever, it seems so natural to be a nomadic people here, because we can't think up any criteria to place a city in any one place more than another. And so there it is Ulaan Baator, a city in the middle of some hills, wrapped in shacks and gers and factories. There are crisp white picture-postcard perfect white gers with jaunty painted doors right next to gers that look like they were patched together with trash that has flown off the train. It's a real cool place.