Trans-Siberian Railway – Part 3, Irkutsk, Russia to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Thursday (24 August) night my train left Irkutsk, Russia bound for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. I was ready to be done with Russia by this point even though it had been just 3 weeks since I entered Russia. Traveling in Russia is just plain difficult sometimes and it begins to wear on you. I shared my train compartment with a Mongolian family which was fine except young boy was really annoying. On Friday (25 August) just after 1 pm we arrived at the Russian border. After waiting there for nearly 5 hours for customs monkey business ("leave your compartment, return to your compartment, leave the train, stand up, sit down, fill out forms, fill out more forms, locked toilets.....") we continued onto the Mongolia side where we waited almost another 4 hours and more of the same customs nonsense. It wasn't until nearly 10 pm that night did we continue our journey. That was a little annoying but I knew ahead of time that was part of the ride. I missed some of the best scenery during the 2 nights and had to spend 9 waking hours staring at train stations. Too bad we couldn't go through customs at night! But I woke up on Saturday morning to stunningly beautiful Mongolia. Stunning, that is, until we hit the urban sprawl of Ulaanbaatar. On Saturday (26 August) morning we steamed into the ugly, smogy, capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbatar.