An unforgettable border crossing. From Mongolia to the People’s Republic of China
We arrived at the Mongolian border to China in the morning dawn with the local train.
The smell of coals in the air, it was freezing, people were pushing and rushing (we wondered why) and with the second the doors opened, everyone started to jump off the train, run across the square, through and around an arch in its centre, to reach the other side. The side with the connection to Erlian, China. We managed to run past the obstacles (Jeep taxi drivers and their sales men) to the cheaper buses. We made it as last passengers onto a bus to Erlian.
Sunrise, smog and dust.
We got closer to the first border checkpoint and it felt like in an Apocalypse movie, as we passed the heavily armed checkpoints, facing the sun, so the armed military officials were only in silhouette, plus their breath in -20 degree. Long border procedure awaited us due to our nor Chinese nor Mongolian citizenship.
Being in a country where censorship and propaganda is all over the place makes talking to the officials at the border not a small talk situation, instead it gives you a nervous time. And it freaks you out in your mind when you get taken aside to be questioned. Questioned in the way that you are supposed to reply diplomatically to a Nazi greeting from the official (as a joke?). Are you especially as a German supposed to laugh? To greet him back? To be upset? To be angry?
Ten minutes of questionnaire were over and we started to wait for our bus to pick us up to bring us away from the border, to the town proper.
We waited and waited. But the bus must have left without us.
No Yuan, no Turik, no ATM, and our emergency USD do not help a lot in China.
We managed to get a free lift to Erlian in a private jeep.
Welcome to China.
The home of ghost cities. Ghost cities like Erlian. 20 meter wide streets for one single electric scooter. Huge brand new abandoned buildings, streets and whole suburbs.
First things first: we needed cash. We needed an ATM. The first and second bank: “only for Chinese card holders”
In a ghost village with no ATM, no sim card and no Chinese skills does not sound good.
But where there are people there is help.
A travel agent gave us directions to a third bank, a ten minute walk away.
All the buses departed to the same time (late afternoon) in Erlian, heading to Beijing. It was still a few hours till the departure, but we already wanted to get a ticket for the bus, after we finally managed to get some cash.
The office did not look very trustful, smoking Chinese guys played cards, and normally it is cheaper to just ask the bus driver directly.
It was easy to find one of the bus drivers, he was just busy cleaning his bus. “Beijing” was the only word we needed to say and he knew he can get a bit of cash money when he lets us drive in his bus. We paid him. He understood that we want a recipe, smiled and searched for five minutes in his bus draw until he gave us a used ticket dated 2010.
Because we felt really tired and Erlian was not the most beautiful city, we decided to take a nap in the quite comfortable sleeping bus. The driver put our luggage into the storage room under the bus.
An hour before the official departure he shouted through the whole bus to wake us up. He was very energetic and waved with his hands. We slowly got up and walked to the front door to see what he wants. Next to the bus was a car with a woman on the steering wheel and a man sitting next to her. They all shouted something in Chinese and made moves that we should sit on the backseat. It was a really confusing situation. The driver got already kind of angry because we did not move. Nobody could understand us and we had no idea what the sense in the whole action was.
The bus driver closed the door and did not want to give us our luggage from the storage room. We tried to tell him to give us the money and our luggage back but he was just convincing us to get into the car.
We were probably too tired to think and finally sat on the backseat. We drove for about an hour out of town and got more and more confused. Stupid us, what will happen to our luggage and where are we actually going? Who are those people who do not understand our google translations? We should have just trusted on the ticket office and got the ride there.
The woman suddenly stopped on the side of the road and we all sat mute in the car.Finally the relief. The bus came from the back, parked next to us and the driver came out. We got on the bus and had our luggage back.
In the end it all made a bit of sense. Us, as the “illegal” passengers could not have boarded at the official station. The driver just tried to be kind and we misjudged him and his actions thanks to a huge language barrier.
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