Together in our group of six cars and with the help of two Chinese guides, we made it across the border from Mongolia to China!

Without our cars, it would be super easy. For stays up to 30 days, we wouldn’t even need a visa in advance. But with our cars, it was complicated, and that was the reason why Racki and I decided to go with a tourist agency for the first time ever. We paid $1400 for their help with entering, traveling through China, and exiting the country.

Before deciding to go to China, we did a lot of research, and our conclusion was that without a Chinese agency, it would be pretty much impossible. Maybe with Chinese friends who have lots of time there would have been ways, but not really.

So we went to the border, waited a lot, stood in a few lines, waited some more, and finally were able to leave the border area. But the process wasn’t finished yet.

Together with our guides, we went to the vehicle inspection department, where all vehicles longer than six meters had to be checked, along with a few other requirements.

In the end, the whole process took so long that we couldn’t finish it completely that day.

However, we did get Chinese SIM cards from a seller the agency had organized.

Together with our group and our primary guide, we went for a nice Chinese dinner. When we woke up in the parking lot where we had all stayed, a Chinese father and his son had parked their camper next to us.

They were driving through China and offering to draw small custom booklets for everyone. It was super sweet. We drew something on an A4 paper, which they scanned with an app and printed onto colored paper using a small portable printer.

It was super fun, and we were all happy with this surprising and wonderful first real interaction with Chinese locals.

After that, we went to the next department for another brief check of our cars’ VIN codes, and then the moment arrived: we all received our Chinese driver’s licenses and license plates!

Next stop: the supermarket. Compared to the supermarkets in rural Mongolia, Chinese supermarkets were something else entirely: clean, well-stocked, and filled with fascinating items, like these tiny soft drink bottles, …

…the typical bulk bags of rice (5kg+), …

…and even a bit of cheese.

The ATM was interesting as well: it locked Racki inside while dispensing the cash.

Everywhere we looked, there were cute things: cute people, cute cars, cute character illustrations on everything.

After getting the basics sorted out, we headed south. Our initial goal was to reach a location further south where it would be cooler and hopefully more relaxed.

We drove our first few kilometers on the Chinese expressways and it was… crazy! No potholes! Everything organized, everything logical. Unbelievable!

There were a few dinosaurs along the way, but hey, they were friendly.

We thoroughly enjoyed the smooth, relaxed driving, even though most of the Chinese cars overtaking us took videos of us—sometimes coming back around for a second video, waving, and smiling. We loved it. We felt genuinely welcomed.

And we found a wonderfully peaceful, secluded spot on a lush green meadow with pleasant temperatures and plenty of space.

After three nights, we moved on to our first real sightseeing stop in China.

We were certain that our time in China would be vastly different from the other countries we had visited, and this sightseeing spot proved it right away.

There were crowds of Chinese tourists visiting this famous volcanic crater area, where you could rent astronaut costumes and mini goats for photos.

Some went even further and brought their own aliens along.

In a way it was funny, because the crater wasn’t formed by natural forces—it was actually a former mining site.

After the crater, we went to the next larger city and visited its old town. It was beautiful.

There were countless Buddha statues in every color, size, and material imaginable.

Just like at the crater, you could rent costumes here, though these were very elegant traditional dresses. The lighting and scenery were absolute perfection for these outfits, and the Chinese tourists did their best to strike the right poses and gestures.

This time, we wanted a selfie too.

One of my favorites: carved out of wood.

And of course, as always, there were crowds of people around.

Beautiful architecture.

Thousands of bronze Buddhas.

We climbed a tower along with lots of other tourists.

The view overlooking the old town and the modern skyline surrounding it was incredible. And this wasn’t even one of China’s mega-cities—yet it still had millions of residents.

Right in front of the cultural site, there was even more commercial activity going on.

Every few meters we discovered something new. Something exotic.

There was a dance group led by a guy dressed up like a clown. The music was hilarious, and many of the locals joined in, having a blast.

From the Flaming Cliffs, we took the fastest way back to the main road and further in the direction back to Ulaanbaatar. It was not that easy to find a camp spot on the way: for a couple of hundred kilometers, it was not possible to leave the very good asphalt road because on the sides of the road were big trenches.

But we found a nice, calm spot, and our archery skills got better and better.

Back in Ulaanbaatar to pick up our Chinese visas, we found a quiet camp spot in a backyard. I thought that somebody would send us away, but Racki was right in guessing that nobody would care.

After we picked up our visas, we met Merel and Leon to have some pizza and drinks. Drinks became more and more important for our stay in Mongolia.

Merel’s and Leon’s car was now at the second garage, and the next day, they got the message that the new spare parts might be ready to be picked up at the customs office.

So we took them in Rosinante out of the city to the mechanic where their car was waiting for the repair.

The mechanic’s home and garage was an interesting place. He and his family were real Mormons, and they had a couple of strong beliefs. For us, it was interesting, and the mechanic was a very friendly and skilled guy.

Tanja and Marcel joined us as well, and together we prayed and called upon the universe to make it possible to pick up the needed spare part for our friends.

Leon went to the customs office with the mechanic, and we found a nice camp spot near the garage.

And in the evening, after an adventurous time at the customs office, Leon came back with the spare part! Time to celebrate.

The next morning, the mechanic and Leon started installing the spare part, and it all went well! The opposite of the first garage that broke their first spare part while trying to repair their car.

So we all prepared to leave Mongolia! Finally.

We started separately, but on the way, we met Merel and Leon again. They had an issue with their turbo. But because they had gotten used to that specific problem with their turbo pipe, they were pretty chilled while dealing with it somewhere on the main road to China, while still in the vastness of the Mongolian steppe.

The result was very pretty and worked very well.

We found a nice spot for the night and some practice.

And played around with our new binoculars, which Leon’s parents had brought with them from Germany.

On the way to the Chinese border, Rosinante reached 150,000 km!

And we visited our last sightseeing spot in Mongolia: a very famous spiritual place with temples and an interesting set of rituals you can perform.

We prayed…

…sacrificed the incense sticks, …

…water, …

…and prayed some more with the locals while listening to a spiritual Mongolian song playing on a smartphone.

After that, we visited the famous meditation caves next to the temple area.

For me, this visit felt very refreshing. It was something different and helped my mind rearrange—a real purification. Writing this, I’m not sure what created my heavy feelings about Mongolia, but at that time being there, I did not like being there. Our first two weeks had been wonderful and surprising. Racki and I had thought that all of Mongolia would be boring steppe, but the north was mountainous, diverse, and beautiful. Our time with our friends was very nice, but at some point, I started to just not enjoy Mongolia anymore. More car topics, the (from our experience) high level of grumpiness and drunkenness of the locals, broken cars all around, our car suffering on the tracks, the experiences with mechanics we had ourselves and the ones our friends had, the boring and (for me) uninteresting or unbeautiful endless steppes of the “not north”…

A part of me felt it was only me creating this heaviness, while another part looked for something else to blame. Either way, I was happy for some purification.

The next day, we went to meet our group for the border crossing to China very close to the border. Two of the six cars and their humans we already knew, and the rest were very friendly as well. All together, we were twelve people in six cars, from four different countries, sharing one destination: China.

We finished preparations for China, like installing apps and continuing to try identity verifications on Chinese apps. This is me trying to nod in the right way to confirm my identity on WeChat and its payment service for the 59th time (not kidding, I counted my attempts over the last four weeks).

We had a nice evening together, and the next morning…

…we set off for the last few kilometers in Mongolia, heading to our next adventure: China!