So Patty, I see your travel interests extend beyond Africa, where I've read many of your interesting posts.

Departure date is June 28, 2005 and I'll make a report upon my return.

Thanks for the interest.

Great! I'm looking forward to it. Are you flying via Seoul or Beijing or some other route? Do you plan to stopover somewhere on the way to/from? Enjoy your trip!

I am flying to Beijing with no stops. Beijing to Ulaan Baatar is a 30-hour train trip that I am looking forward to, being somewhat of a train person.

On the way home it is UB-Beijing-Chicago with no other stops. A very long haul. I hope I can sleep and have some pleasant dreams about my recent travels.

Thanks.

We took the train from Beijing to UB and on to Lake Baikal and then back to Beijing last June. The train trip was wonderful. We had 1st class accomodations from Beijing to UB on a Mongolian train and back from Lake Baikal to Beijing on a Chinese train. From UB to Lake Baikal,we had 2nd class on a Russian train. Do you know which you will be on? They are quite different. We booked through "Monkey Business" (recommended in LP) and were happy with them. We never tired of looking out of the windows, chatting with everyone, and making our noodles and tea with the hot water provided on each car! This was probably the best trip my husband and I have ever taken.

A question for JaneB: Which, if any, of Monkey Shrine Business's side trips did you take? If you took any of the side trips, what are your thoughts about them?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ben, At first when we bought our tickets at HongKong, we thought we would not sign up for any side trips on the 2-day layovers at UB and Irkust. But we changed our minds before leaving Beijing since we would only have 2 days at each place. There really is no time for a "learning curve" for getting around. So we decided to sign up for the UB (1 night in a ger, and 1 night in a hotel) and Irkust (1 night in a "wooden house" on the lake and 1 night in a hotel). We were very glad that we did. While the side trips are greatly over-priced, it was nice not to be worried about language, transportation, etc. And we really enjoyed both of them. Only one person in our 9-person group did not sign up for side-trips at each stop.