The end of the line

Having left the Ger Camp we made the short drive back to Ulaan Baatar with the ever-insane Naki. Our last night in the capital was in a rather unexpectedly swanky hotel, the largest in the city with twin pink towers (insert your own joke here). Along the train ride and at the Ger Camp we met a great bunch of new friends and we all went out for dinner to celebrate leaving Mongolia, heading for the amusingly entitled Gengis Khan (or Chinngis Khan as he is in Mongolia) Jazz Cafe.




Boarding the train the next morning we arrived at the Mongolia / Chinese border at 8 in the evening having crossed the vast wastelands of the Gobi Desert.

After waiting for the bogeys to be changed on the train, (where they lift up each individual carriage and replace all the wheel mechanisms because Russian/Mongolian and Chinese train gauges are a different size - pretty amazing considering we were still in the carriage when they did this!) we were on our way towards Beijing marking the end of our Trans-Siberian Adventure! Here we all are arriving in Beijing:



Also ending at this point was my self-imposed 'beard to Bejing' experiment - as you can see my beard had reached a sizeable scruff at this point and rather than waste a good three weeks growth I decided to try a number of different styles - you can cast your votes as to which one I should keep permanently - my personal favorite is the moustache, making me look very dodgy indeed!