Trans-Mongolian Railway and last few weeks of our trip

Saturday morning we boarded a train out of Beijing headed for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  The last 16 days of our 5 and a half month journey we decided to take the Trans-Mongolian Railway from Beijing to Moscow.  The railway is most commonly known as the Transsiberian Railway, which runs from Moscow to Vladivostok, the most eastern part of Russia (almost at Japan) and covers 6000 miles. (Note: if you haven't watched the film Transsiberian, with Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer, we highly recommend it.  Great thriller.)

We're cutting through Mongolia

Train before departing from Beijing

Our compartment (4 beds total)

We chose the Trans-Mongolian route, which covers 5000 miles and would take 5 days of continuous train travel.  We are stopping at 3 places between Beijing and Moscow, our first being Ulaanbaatar, where we are now.  It is the capital of Mongolia with a population of over a million (the country only has a population of under 3 million), it feels more like Russia than Asia.  Especially since they use the Cyrillic alphabet (same as Russian) and has more of a soviet style communism feel.

Sunset over the Gobi desert

Central square in Ulaanbaatar

Mongolian warrior

Gers are the tent structures and some skyscrapers (not many here)

We are going to stay a total of 4 days in Mongolia.  Tomorrow we are going on a tour to go camping in the countryside in a ger.  The weather here is much cooler than China (we even saw some snow coming into town).  It is high 50s during the day and drops almost to freezing at night.