We had been so excited to get off at the big station in Ulan Ude, the capitol of the Buryat Republic, when everything had been in front of us. Now, on the way home to China, we looked at the huge, lighted station and returned each to our private thoughts.

We spent yet another interminable midnight border crossing between Russia and Mongolia and another between Mongolia and China. So many things were going on, so much money changed hands. I didn’t want to know. I tried to sleep through it all, but it was quite a racket. In the meantime, the conductors still cooked. They had begun cooking in Moscow and never stopped… dumplings, cabbage and pork, pancakes with delectable fillings. The cleaver never stopped once even in the middle of the night. My mouth watered… but they only half-cleaned the toilets once that week with the sour, grimy mop of China. I was dirty.

In Erenhot they pulled right into the building where they change the bogies. Then, as the hydraulic lifts took us to new heights, someone realized we were all still on the train. We descended and had to get off in the cold terminal. Our little restaurant was closed… no chicken with hot peppers or crunchy potatoes with garlic and vinegar. We waited in the dark sullenly with the smell of headache-provoking pollution for over two hours for the train to be ready.

In the morning things had changed. We would be in Beijing around 3. Already Jay and I were thinking of separate lives. He called his girlfriend at the first opportunity. I tried to plan how many things I could get done in Beijing before I had to get on a plane  the next morning.

We came down through the mountains at Badaling. We got out at the station and took pictures of The Great Wall… wondered how they got horses up the steep incline. The train had stopped every several minutes to check the brakes. The kilometer markers slowly decreased… and then, quite suddenly, we were back in the Beijing station. The train stopped. We disembarked… joined the crowd on the stairs… down the familiar wide hall… and out into the noise and bustle of Beijing.

On the last evening in Mongolia, I stood looking out of the train window until the sun set. Sometimes I would lose sight of the sun, but just around the bend I caught up with it again ever sinking. I stood there until I could see the planets and the moon. Later, I looked up at the stars, listened to the sound of the train on the rails. I felt as if I could stay in Mongolia forever, but, of course, I would not. I asked myself why I travel… the longing for the freedom of the journey without the clutter of a destination… and, finally, realized, I don’t need to answer that question anymore.