Like a Rhinestone Cowboy, getting cards and letters from people I don't even know...

A covered version of this classic blasted from the radio as we had a blissful Italian lunch in a little bistro in Ulan Baator. It was odd. The food was amazing though. After eating scant meals and drinking barely enough water for days, to be able to sit down to spinach pasta with mushrooms, tuscan soup and lemonade... One thing to be said for travelling in a place where your options are limited, when you have the opportunity for real food again it tastes heavenly. It was like we were eating for the first time.

Ulan Ude was a disaster, as all things had been in Russia. Our books indicated that from the station we should cross the footbridge, walk 150 meters and turn down any street to the right into the town square. Well, we set about to do so in the darkness of early morning. The square was nowhere to be found. Some people were uninterested in even taking a moment to try and understand what we were looking for (the huge statue of Lenin's head, which is the centerpiece of the town). Two hours later, it dawned on me that there was a whole other side of town across the train tracks and we had been wandering on the wrong side of them. The books never mentioned that this other side (with its own markets, libraries, hotels) existed!

I am going to have a Lonely Planet book burning session when I return home. Never have I been so consistently misguided!

By the time we did reach the hotel we had missed the first bus to the Datsam (a Buddhist monastery 60km from the city). We walked to the bus station where I talked to the bus driver. He did not really speak English, but we seemed to have an understanding. I asked him times for Ulan Ude to Datsam and then Datsam to Ulan Ude, gesturing with my arm "there" and "back". He even took a piece of paper and wrote down the times, listing one column Ulan Ude and one Datsam. Oh, why do I even bother with the long explanations? After rushing around the temples to insure that we caught our bus back to the city, we just sat at the entrance and waited and waited and waited. FOR THE BUS THAT WOULD NEVER COME. The buses apparently don't run back from the temples. We caught a ride with some guy(!?!?!) to a local village and took a minibus from there.

Then we had to trek to the train station to buy our tickets. We found a market where I bought some bread and tuna fish (protein, protein, protein, my body screams). The fish was so vile and tinny that I could not eat it.

The provodnista put us in the wrong cabin when we got on the train, some bureaucratic business to do with what I'm sure were illegal, undeclared goods hidden all over the carriage. We shared a cabin with a nice enough Mongolian woman who had a friend visiting at every possible moment. During our nine (yes, that says nine) hour border crossing (frequently disturbed by the train's random, halting advances, which tossed us around the cabin like rag dolls) we watched people hiding boxes of fur hats or fish tails or whatever they need to smuggle in underneath the train, in overhead bins, in the toilet, out the back of the carriage, everywhere! It was quite a juggling act.

When we finally did arrive in Ulan Baator we got in a taxi with a hideous old cackling witch in traditional dress. We agreed on 500 togog, which was more than fair. When we arrived and I handed her the bill she started ranting about dollar, dollar. She expected us to pay five dollars each to ride about a kilometer! Bah! I took two dollars out of my case and showed it to her. She balked. She indicated that we should get back in the car. Fine! Calling her bluff we did. She didn't turn on the car, just blubbered about five dollar. We just sat there. I showed her the money in my hand. "That's it," I said. She got out again and went around to the trunk. I told her to open it. She wanted the money so I handed it to her. She motioned to Kip, like "Now where's YOUR money". We said "No, that's all!" She had the key in the trunk so I went to open it. She slapped me! She ranted a minute more and then probably remembered she had a child on the stove for breakfast and it was all but ruined so she'd better rush home. She opened the trunk and we grabbed our things. She took off mumbling.

Of course the door to the hostel was locked and there was no notice explaining how to enter the building. There was no bell. Naturally our books were useless. We waited until someone came out, which allowed us entry into the building, and found the guesthouse on the second floor. After a nap and a shower (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh) we went out to find the international railway booking office, another display of how maps in our guidebooks are far better suited for toilet paper than anything. We have to go back tomorrow to find out about tickets to Beijing as they do not go on sale until the day before departure. Keep us in your thoughts as we attempt this simplest of tasks, which will no doubt cause us great undue stress...

Anyway, this leads me back to our Italian restaurant. Ah the delight. It was, sadly, the highlight of the day. More from the far side of the world tomorrow...