Trans-Mongolian Diary: Introduction

I’m writing this from a hotel room in Beijing, where I’ve come to catch a train to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. This will be the first leg of my trip on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. As with the Trans-Siberian, there’s no single Trans-Mongolian train; the term simply refers to the route between Moscow and Beijing via Ulaanbaatar. We’ll be breaking up the weeklong journey with stops in Mongolia and Russia, including Lake Baikal and Ekaterinburg.

The first leg of our journey will take us from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar.

I’ve dreamed about this trip for many years, and the feedback I’ve gotten from readers suggests that its on many of your bucket lists, too. To share as much of the experience as I can, I’ll be writing a post a day for the next 20 days. I’m calling it my Trans-Mongolian Diary, but it won’t simply be a litany of what we did each day. Instead, I hope to share various aspects of the experience, from the companions we meet on the train to the sights we see in between. I hope you follow along, via either my RSS feed or this one-stop shop for of all my Trans-Mongolian posts.

Technical note: One problem with blogging about a train trip is that Internet access isn’t available on multiday train journeys. In the absence of a fancy-pants 3G connection, there will be a week-long “blog delay” for these Trans-Mongolian posts to give me time to find a Wi-Fi hookup. To follow me in real time (when I have an Internet connection), check out my Twitter feed.

The photo of the Beijing-Ulaanbaatar train was taken by Sistak and is used under a Creative Commons license.

Related posts:

1. Day 20: Trans-Mongolian Finale
2. Day 10: A Non-Zagat Guide to Trans-Mongolian Dining
3. Day 1: The Romance of Place Names
4. A Trans-Siberian Trip in 10 Steps
5. Day 2: Snapshots from Train 23

Tagged as: Beijing, China, trains, Trans-Mongolian, Trans-Mongolian Diary, Trans-Siberian Railway