Zamiin Uud and the Border Crossing

It was go day out of Erenhot, China and into Mongolia. The only way over the 10km or so border for us was load all our gear including bikes into an already sacked out, beat up, about to implode, explode and rattle apart border jeep from Mongolia. 130 Yuan paid to the driver after some negotiation and we were off with all his gear and two other passengers. It was full, although I'm sure the driver would have been happy to put more in if he could! The driving was loose. We hadn't even left the carpark and our driver hit the police barrier arm. The vehicle was stood down for half an hour and the driver earned and whack on the head by the frustrated Chinese policeman. Now on the road to the border the driving continued in loose style. Speeding, irrational tooting and over/undertaking. China immigration easy, Mongolian immigration a little bit more complex. We were asked to step into a seperate room for processing as no one could speak english.  The officers looked over our visas with confusion for a while before finally deciding to change them from entry and exithe visas to entry only. All done by simply writing on our visas in a ballpoint pen and stamped for authenticity.

Sacked out vehicle

We reloaded back into our jeep and were dropped off at the local square of Zamiin Uud. With a hotel found, and a delicious lunch of pastry stuffed with meat and deep fried, we were up in our rooms to celebrate our arrival in Mongolia with beer and cake, while watching a sandstorm blast through the town.

An approaching sandstorm

Celebration