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the Gobi had been our biggest challenge yet, and I was ready for a smooth run
home. I think that Tim felt the same way.
'What do you reckon?' I asked him. 'What do you think is in store for us over
that fence?'
Tim grinned as he replied, his white toothy smile emphasised by the grease
streaks in his matted beard and the ingrained dirt covering all his exposed facial
skin. 'I've been dreaming about it for the past week,' he said, happily. 'I'd say that
once we cross that border we deserve to find a long, flat bitumen highway and a
big sign pointing straight to Beijing.'
———
Four days later, the local train from Ulaan Baatar jerked to a stop at the station
in Zamyn-Uud and spilled us onto the platform. We'd returned to the capital for a
couple of days to wash, to contact home and to find a way to smuggle our bikes
across the border. We'd wanted to book a train straight to Beijing, then jump off
with our bikes at the first station across the border. But the Beijing trains didn't
stop at Zamyn-Uud, and that was where we'd left our bikes.
So, clean and well fed, but none the wiser, we returned to the border town to see
what we could manage from there. We stretched in the cold air of the platform and
sauntered over to the baggage room to retrieve our cycles.
The lady behind the counter peered at me suspiciously with complete lack of
recognition. It had taken almost three hours of showering to scrub off all the dirt.
Compared to the state we'd been in when we'd first arrived, we now looked as
though we belonged to another race.
I slowly packed the bags on my bicycle then wheeled it out of the station, dir-
ectly onto the town square. We had Chinese visas and a freshly hatched plan. If all
went well, this would be our last day in Mongolia.
Zamyn-Uud was a dirty town bustling with busy traders. People rushed about
and were sometimes rude. The kids were aggressive. We did a little tour of the
shops, buying food and supplies that would see us over the border and at least a
few days along the road, then set about searching for a taxi that could take us to
Erienhot.
In the end, a Chinese driver with a big van took us across the frontier. We nego-
tiated with him through a Mongolian who could translate our few words of Mongo-
lian into his few words of Chinese, and agreed on a price of US$50. We crammed
our bikes into the back of the windowless van, and then, with a wave to the crowd
