border crossing

finally found a ticket to the border of china mongolia via overnight bus. the bus was made up of short beds instead of seats and it was completly full. i had an ok sleep though, not one of my worst bus journies. at the border town of ehrlian it was a walk down this solitary road\. my hands had never been so cold, they ached they were so cold. the gloves didn't do a damn thing. the border guards said we couldn't walk across and that we would have to take a minibus over. so we started to trudge back until a mongolian man with his family pulled over and kicked his family out-they weren't upset- and offered to take us. the border crossing took about an hour with a lot of driving around huge trucks and snow piles and over curbs in the all terrain vehicle we were in. after the chinese border we looked behind us and realized we'd just smuggled some girl across behind our luggage. she and the driver laughed, "stupid china". spent the rest of the day waiting for the train to come at ten at night. the desert surrounded the whole town, it seemed an inhospitable place for civilization. we had lunch at a cafe and a local worker who was missing a finger bought us a round of beers and we toasted a few times. i learned quick that when you cheers, you have to slam the whole beer, so we did that until the train came. ullanbataar is very cold its negative 10 degrees. there is an ice sculpture slide that sits in the park and i slid down it with the local kids for a few hours, the people here are lovely, most people are nice and trusting, i'd stay here longer if it wasn't so damn cold. leaving for russia on tuesday. i'll update later on some of my thoughts on china, not all favorable,i'll explain.