The first experience was a failure – has got the “taxi driver, private owners (or rather, the taxi driver), but found it only after she dovezla me to the railway station in Suha Bator and began to demand the fare. In general, Mongolian drivers, including trucks, accustomed to the passengers to borrow money. Of course they can ride for free, if you can explain to them what is hitchhiking, and will not freeze in anticipation of such an altruist on a desert highway. I luckily stumbled upon a lonely cottage – a police post. There, leaning against a hot stove and watching the French film in the Mongolian language, I am comfortable “voting”, asking all drivers came celebrated. So I “Stopped” Lada “to Darkhan. In Soviet times, saying: chicken – not a bird, Mongolia – not abroad. It does not feel like a foreigner. Houses are built by Soviet construction workers, most of the goods in the shops – Russian-made cars on the roads – also all of us. On TV – the transfer of Ostankino, on the radio – “Mayak”. And all more or less educated Mongolians speak in Russian.
He arrived in Darkhan late in the evening. Went to the railway station to get warm. Just like us. Ticket office is closed, but her lined up a long queue. Around the middle stood a tall guy with glasses. I spoke to him in Russian, and no mistake. Hortsog was Russian-speaking. From him I learned that a couple of hours in Ulan Bator will train. Fare is $ 2. He bought me a ticket for the 2000 MNT (around $ 2) – I have a Mongolian had no money, took place in the car, pushed through the dense crowd of Mongols stormed the front door, and generally took me patronage – until the doors of the consular department of the Chinese Embassy.
If in Moscow for processing Chinese visa necessarily need to have an invitation, but also to defend a long line, then in Ulan Bator, enough to fill a short questionnaire and pay a consular fee of $ 30 (in Moscow – 50!). Heading out of Moscow in all directions, we agreed to meet before the doors of the Chinese embassy in Ulan Bator. But none of the 27 December krugosvetchikov there did not come (it later became clear: they previously came several times to meet me, but that day did not go, thinking that I did change my mind to go and stayed in Moscow).
