April 16, 2012
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| Another train journey begins: Russia, here we come! |
You’re not allowed to take Mongolian tugriks out of the
country. Because I had taken out too many Yuan in China, when I arrived in
Mongolia I converted what I thought I’d need while I was there into tugriks,
and the rest I exchanged into Russian rubles. Yesterday there was a bit of a
mad rush in our group to exchange money and I was feeling pretty good about
having avoided that stress as I already taken care of it three days earlier.
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| The gang's ready for another night! |
So you could imagine my surprise this morning on the train when
I opened my money belt to finally take out the rubles I would need for lunch
and found notes with pictures of Genghis Kahn on them. If I’m honest, my first
thought was that I didn’t know Russia had a leader that looked so similar to
the Khan. And then I realized what I had done. Yes, I had tucked away my “Russian
money” without making sure it was indeed Russian money, and now, instead of
having $200 worth of Russian rubles, I had $200 worth of Mongolian tugriks. Not
only was this inconvenient, it was technically illegal.
Fortunately, we had already gone through customs on each
side of the border this morning so I wasn’t really worried about getting caught with the money. (There was a
woman on the train this morning who did have a little run-in with the customs
officials. She had boarded in Mongolia with cases of alcohol and jeans that she
was trying to hide in other people’s cabins and other random places around the
train (like the garbage can?). Those of us in my cabin thought she had gotten
away with it, but according to our neighbors closer to the smuggler’s room, it
turns out the giant suitcases that came onto the train with her full last night
were pretty much empty by the time the officials finished their search this
morning.) Everyone in our compartment had to open our suitcases for the Russian
officials to inspect and photograph (yes, photograph), but as we weren’t trying
to smuggle anything in, that was the extent of our interaction with them.
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| Looking fantastic in our pj's! |
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| Into Russia! |
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| Morning pit stop |
Anyway, when I explained my money exchange folly to our
guide he said he’d help me try to find a place to exchange the money while we
were stopped at the border town. I felt a little sketchy as we met with a
Mongolian train attendant who said she could probably help us out. She sat in
silence on a bench at the station with two of her friends while my guide,
another traveler in the group, and I stood, also in silence, in front of them
acting nonchalant. Breaking the silence with a minimal exchange, our guide
learned that they actually didn’t have enough money to exchange mine so they
stood and walked away. We waited a few moments and then also left the bench.
It was then pointed out that the other train in the station
was actually headed into Mongolia and
that perhaps I could explain my situation to some of those passengers and they
might be willing to do a little informal exchange with me. It took approaching
three different groups of travelers, but after giving my sob story those three
times I managed to get all my money exchanged. Two of the three groups of
travelers were happy to help me as much as they could—they just didn’t have
enough dollars or rubles to exchange it all. The middle group I addressed was a
little more skeptical about exchanging their money with me in this fashion, but
one at least one guy was willing. (To be fair, I was on the other side of the
situation a few weeks ago in Thailand and I get being a little skeptical. In
the end, I had found a happy medium between exchanging enough money for the guy
in need to get where he wanted to go and
not changing so much that I would be devastated if there was a problem with his
money. Fortunately, there wasn’t, and I suppose maybe it was karma helping me
out today.)
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| Hello, Russia! |
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