Beijing & Trans Mongolian Train Journey 2008
4th - 15th June and 17th - 28th September
This tour is a wonderful opportunity
to see the most important and famous sights
in and around Beijing, to visit the ancient
Mongolian capital of Kharkhorin and to travel
on the Trans Mongolian train from Beijing to
Ulaanbaatar, which is the first part of the
Trans Siberian railway line.
In Beijing we will visit the Summer Palace gardens
which were the summer residence of the Emperor
and his retinue, the Forbidden City on Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven, considered
to be the perfection of Ming architecture. In
the mountains outside the city we go to the
Great Wall at Badaling and also travel to see
the Ming tombs where most of the Ming dynasty
Emperors were buried.
The train is a very exciting way to enter Mongolia
and is a journey lasting approximately 35 hours.
We pass through the Chinese autonomous region
of Inner Mongolia and across the Gobi Desert to reach Ulaanbaatar. This is a fun journey
with lots to see, plenty of other passengers
to meet, a nice restaurant car, and comfortable
bunk beds in each compartment.
In Mongolia we travel by jeep to Kharkhorin
town in the central region. It is difficult
to believe that this open, undeveloped, sparsely
inhabited valley was once the centre of the
greatest empire the world has ever known. Chinggis
Khaan established his capital here in the thirteenth
century, and later a large Buddhist monastery
was built on the same site. Accommodation is
at ger camps, located in places of particular
beauty.
