SAISHAND – ERENHOT (MONGOLIA-CHINA BORDER)

When few days ago Buho told us that there is no road, I frankly, didn’t believe him. Oh well, this is absolutely true! No, it’s even worse: luckily, Janis hadn’t GPS packed in yet because we felt the urgent need for it right after having the town left. We checked the map once again: it said we are driving a big asphalted road, the one that connects Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia with 800,000 inhabitants, with Beijing, the capital of China with 12 millions of inhabitants. It’s amazing! We decide to take the railway as the bearing for us because, unlike the main road, it is real. In approximately fifty kilometers we meet the first vehicle on “the main road”: an overloaded truck that dangerously sways on the uneven surface. We stop it and get another proof of that we are on the right way. Time after time we begin to feel as if this annoying road is never going to end, still, in five hours we finally see the silhouette of the border town Zamiin Uud. And there goes asphalt, too!

There are even more surprises for us: a modern big border control building and similar customs terminal at a distance. China is behind the barber wire. There is no line on the Mongolian side, so the border guard takes our passports and speaks into his walkie-talkie, as much as we can understand, it is about our arrival. Next, with few broken English and Russian words he tell us it is not allowed to enter the border control area with the bikes, so we drive aside, take off our jackets and boots, sit down and wonder as to what to do. As usual, people are gathering around us and in an hour or so we already have made new Mongolian friends. One of them, Ganzo, speaks pretty good English. Soon, it is clears that we have problems with even leaving Mongolia since the border control workers are well aware about the Chinese attitude towards foreigners trying to enter China on their own vehicles. They just don’t want to begin the process if they know well that we will never get into China with no permission and no guide. Both border control offices are open till 7PM, so we have less than an hour today. All of a sudden, Ganzo helps us: he knows a local mafia member who would help us persuade Mongolian border guards to let us out of the country. 

This would cost $300 and it doesn’t include the organization on the Chinese side. We don’t argue since we don’t have much choice anyway. Everything gets processed and registered very quickly with no single question, and in few minutes we are out. Goodbye, Mongolia! 

The Chinese terminal is even more impressive that Mongolian one. Right at the high iron gate the policeman dressed in light green uniform tells us to step aside and wait, so we do. Crowds of Chinese people jump out of the buses waiting in line and gather around us, nibbling and pulling our bikes, our bags and ourselves. We are just sitting helpless and watch them doing this all to us. Soon, another officer, the ill-looking one, comes to us and asks for the documents. He is not interested in our passports; the only word we can understand from what he says is „permission”. I take off my briefcase with all the documents: invitations, recommendations and translated driver’s licenses. Took a quick look at these, he shakes his head and mumbles something in Chinese. I show him ATA carnet, our last card to play, yet he is still the same. Then he raises his voice, pushes his finger backwards direction and yells: “Back to Mongolia!” It gets even worse when we ask for the translator, and what we can understand from all he is saying is our passports are going to be taken away and our visas voided. By this time we are already surrounded by six green officers, so we decide not to insist and turn back to Mongolia. Yet, we have another problem: our Mongolian visas are void and we are not allowed to enter Mongolia again. However, it is not that bad: the Mongolian chief border guard is quite sympathetic and says he has already foreseen such an outcome at the Chinese. He voids our leaving seals and we return to Mongolia. At the nearest hotel we finally have our lunch at 9PM and try to figure out what to do next.