We are waiting at the hotel for the okay to go to the border 5 kms up the road. Our agents have been here for 2 days working on this and we have to stay on call.
We stayed in the Pacific International Hotel last night ironically couldn't be further from the pacfic. We are in the middle of nowhere in a small town but there is a porsche cayenne, a rolls royce and a number of top end vehicles in the car park. They seem to like black cars with black windows. Actually there are next to no shitty old cars. They are all either new or late model or they are bikes or tuktuk carts.
I have only seen one other landrover and that was in Beijing in the Diplomatic Enclave. It was a well kitted out white 90.
I have got into the habit of checking my oil and water every morning. In preparation for the border crossing we have to physically point out the chassis number and the engine number. Greg kindly cleaned them off with a pair of his undies! The other I have learnt is that you offer to read the number out to the customs geek. As you lean under the bonnet with a torch you read out the number that you written on your palm earlier. This seems to work well.
So we waited all day at the hotel. We knew the border closes at 6pm and would not open tomorrow as it is Nadam Festival in Mongolia. As usual we got the call just before closing. And after some greasing of palms as per usual here in our dealings in China.
I have got into the habit of checking my oil and water every morning. In preparation for the border crossing we have to physically point out the chassis number and the engine number. Greg kindly cleaned them off with a pair of his undies! The other I have learnt is that you offer to read the number out to the customs geek. As you lean under the bonnet with a torch you read out the number that you written on your palm earlier. This seems to work well.
So we waited all day at the hotel. We knew the border closes at 6pm and would not open tomorrow as it is Nadam Festival in Mongolia. As usual we got the call just before closing. And after some greasing of palms as per usual here in our dealings in China.
It was hilarious to watch at the border as the uaz?(Check my spelling!) vehicles would pull up to the gate. They are like a crapped out 90 defender. They pull up and if there is an inch of space available then people will chase and open the door and try and squeeze in to get a ride across the 2km of no mans land between borders. We looked in. The seats had been removed and would just sit on top of the boxes of whatever goods they were taking back to Mongolia. We even saw one full of Icecream in the 30+ degree heat. Back doors open so that they could fit more in.
The change as we came through customs in Mongolia was obvious. They were pleased to see us, welcomed us and we got through pretty quick.
Staying in a cool little hotel in the back blocks of this sandy little border town. They started the festival today so there are quite a few parties going on around us. Off to bed now to get ready for a big day crossing the Gobi tomorrow.
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