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bye bye russia

thank god we made it out of russia! we got on the train yesterday from irkutsk at 5:40am. we were wondering who we would have for cabin mates on the train, and hoped we wouldnt be disturbing anyone too much at 5am. but luckily, we had the compartment to ourselves again. who needs first class when you can pay for second and get your own compartment anyways? there were some chinese traders in the cabin beside ours who were using our cabin as a warehouse, so they had to get up and move it all back into their own cabin, but tat was all.we had a bit of a nap and just had a relaxing day. the only trouble was that we werent sure yet what would happen when we got to the border, as we had never managed to get our migration cards, and so couldnt register our visas either. we heard loads of different opinions as to what might happen to us, ranging from "not a problem, no on ewill even notice" to getting deported, having to pay a $!1000us fine, never being allowed back into russia etc. so we were a bit nervous coming up to the border. the train was stopped at the border for 7 hours (apparently thats pretty quick...other people we talked to were stopped for 10 hours or more). when the border guard came on and asked us for our passports, we hande dthem over. she then asked us for our migration cards. shit. we said we didnt have them, she asked again. shit. we repeated that we didnt have the cards. at first she seemed really stern, and we were afraid she was gonna be a goblin,  (nice last memories of russia)but another border guard just came up and handed us blank immigration cards, which we filled out. they took those and left for about 2 hours, while we sat there praying that everything really would be that easy (they hadnt even mentioned the lack of visa registration, which is ususally a big deal). they finally came back, and asked us to step outside (you stay in your cabin the whole time, and the guards come to you). we were shitting ourselves, worried we were gonna have to go in for questioning etc, really worried. but it turned out all she wanted was to look to see how much luggage we had, handed us back our passports with a big smile, and said good bye.WOO HOO!!! so we made it, and have nothing but really great memories of russia, we loved it (and we even love the goblins, they just make it all so funny, you just have to laugh at them).

so we entered mongolia, which is pretty cool from what we've seen. we're only really passing thru, we wanted to stay longer, but with all the trouble with our tickets etc, we thought it was best to not push our luck, just take the tickets we were given, at least we get to go thru the country, and we're planning to come back in the summer some time so we can camp in the gobi desert. but so far mongolia is beautifuul, very dusty and dry looking, nothing but sand, brown grass, camels and horses, and gers (traditional nomadic houses). the country is really mountainous at t ehstart, but then you get into the gobi, and it just turns flat. for thousands of kilometers, its just flat desert. nothing too exciting, but its surprising how long you can happily just sit and stare out the window at it.

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