Day 3 - Erlian to Zamyn Ud

We arrived in Erlian, sometime past 4am. As soon as we got down the bus, we realized how cold it was. I can recall Prasoon’s teeth chattering and him shivering like anything. I was well-protected with my layers of clothing, gloves, and caps.
The bus stand was absolutely chaotic. There were two buses that arrived together from Beijing and there were many, many jeeps waiting to grab customers. None of the drivers spoke English. In this chaos, we had to make up our mind fast without knowing for sure what’s going on. We just got onto a jeep with two other women. We tried to negotiate for 10 Yuan each to get onto the jeep. The Jeep accommodated 4 passengers with an open body at the back for the luggage. All this while, we were thinking we are now heading towards the China-Mongolia border, where we would have to wait until 9am for immigration. Well, the driver just stopped after 5 minutes. He had brought us to a hotel to stay for those few hours. He reassured us that he will come back at 8am and then drive us to Mongolia Border. The communication channel was not dependable though.
The chaos at the bus station reminded me of Agra, India. A city that thrives on tourism – millions come in to see the Taj Mahal there. The rickshaw drivers have the same enthusiasm and tactics of attracting tourists at the railway station. The victory smile on the face of the drivers who happen to grab the customer before his other friends do is the same! It just surprises me how the country, culture, etc. could be totally different, yet the scale of the city is what defines its character and it could be the same across the world.
So, at the hotel where we got dropped off, they walked us to a room with twin beds on either side of the room, an ensuite bathroom. The room was heated, but the water in the sink and shower was freezing. That meant no shower for us the next day. The bed linen was fancy with ‘ROMANTIC’ written all over it. The setting was far from romantic though. We just cuddled on one bed and set an alarm for 7am. We got ready and were in the lobby by about 8:15am. That’s where we met 4 french people, also heading to Ulan-Bataar. One of them was fluent in English and very friendly. The two girls and one guy were waiters at a restaurant in the mountains in St. Nalo, France. The other guy was a chef there. Their travel had been pretty interesting too. The couple – Gwen & Delphine had been on the road for really long.