The International Train Booking Office (Mon-Fri 8.30-12am & 1.30-5pm) is the best thing about the International Hotel at 9 Jianguomenwai Dajie. Here you can buy tickets to Moscow and Ulan Batur with the minimum of fuss. Out of season, few people make the journey, but in summer there may well not be a seat for weeks. Allow yourself a week or two for dealing with embassy bureaucracy. After putting down a ¥100 deposit on the ticket at the booking office, you'll be issued with a reservation slip. Take this with you to the embassy when you apply for visas and the process should be fairly painless. A Russian transit visa, valid for a week, costs around US$30. A tourist visa, valid for one month, costs around US$50, with a surcharge for certain nationalities (mostly African and South American). Transit visas for Mongolia are valid for one week and cost US$25; tourist visas valid for a month cost US$50.

 

Chinese train #3 to Moscow via Ulan Batur leaves every Wednesday and takes five and a half days. A bunk in a second-class cabin with four beds - which is perfectly comfortable - costs ¥1606. First class is ¥2306 (four beds) or ¥2786 (two beds). The Russian train #19, which follows the Trans-Siberian route, leaves on Saturdays and takes six days. The cheapest bunk here is ¥1825; first class is ¥2900. A Mongolian train leaves for Ulan Batur every Tuesday and costs ¥606 for one bed in a four-bed berth. Travelling on train #3 is slightly cheaper.

The tour company Monkey Business will organize your trip for you, if you don't mind paying an extra US$150 for the privilege of having your visas sorted out for you and being patronized by their staff of jaded ex-travellers. They're in Rm 406 of the Beijing Commercial Business Complex at Youanmenwai (tel 63292244 ext 2532), a huge building 1.5km west of the Qiaoyuan Hotel, with its name in English emblazoned across it. They also have an office in Hong Kong (Flat 6, Fourth Floor, E Block, Chungking Mansions; tel 2731376).