Day 26: Russia Mongolian Border

We crossed the border today into Mongolia, once again subjecting our selves to the vague, and bewildering Russian customs procedures.

We once again filled out two customs forms, this time in English! The not to friendly border guard tasked with giving us the forms, could not be bothered for a pen, so we ended up sharing one. There were two cars ahead of us in line, so we had plenty of time... like an hour or so.

They don't move things fast here.

AFter getting to the first booth, we handed our passports to no less than 3 people, who scanned and rescanned them. Once we answered a few questions we were ushered inside to the efficient and not unpleasent Russian Border girl, who proceeded to stamp our customs declarations no less than 6 or 7 times, which we then initialed multitude of times. Why? I have no idea.


















After that, we were sent on, 10 more feet to Passport control. Where a guy in a box (everyone here works in a box, and you give whatever to them through on of those slide boxes. So we slide our Passports into the box, one at a time, and he then took the next 5 minutes to scrutinize us, the passports, make calls on the phone, ran our passports under black lights, make us look at him and frown like in the passport photo, and after all that, he passed them back. I guess we passed.

We were now free from Russia, but not yet in Mongolia. We were in no mans land.

So we moved our bikes ahead to Mongolian customs, and were met by a pleasant fellow who spoke some english, and he helped us fill out the Mongolian forms. They were easier and more efficient than their Russian counterparts, and quite a bit more friendly.

The only funny thing on the Mongolian side, was the number of stamps each of our documents got. We got on the merry go round of stamps this time, going from person to person, who would take out their little stamp machine, and dutifully stamp our paper. I think we got 5 of them. Why. Again... no idea.

After that, we were clear, and now officially in Mongolia. With handshakes and congratulations all around, we set off, and after about 50 yards, I blew the rear tire off my bike... then it started to rain.

Did I mention the Rain... 26 days on the Road, we've had rain 24 days.



Today: 281 km