Travel over the border between Russia and Mongolia
- train border Naushki (Russia - Mongolia) : check out the information in the Mongolia chapter about problems with the declaration form.- border for public transport Kyakhta : 100 Rubel for crossing by jeep, crossing the border by foot is forbidden. The border crossing is open 9-12:00 and 14-18:00. Taxi from Kyakhta to the border costs 30 Rubel. From the trainstation there is a bus to the border for 16 Rubel or by taxi, 250 Rubel. Take care, since there are a lot of tourists during the summer months it can take a long time to cross the border since there are not enough authorised jeeps they dare to ask 50$ per jeep for the short distance to Sukhbaatar on the Mongolian side. When I arrived I met a group of tourists that had been stuck since nine in the morning the day before. There are hotels in Kyakhta in case you would get stuck. Altough the daily train between Irkutsk-Ulaan Baatar stops for 280 minutes in Naushki (Russian border) and 140 minutes in Sukhbaatar (Mongolian border) should I not recommend to try to shorten the waiting by going by bus/jeep/etc. Some Polish people I meet who had tried it only just managed to catch up again with the train in Sukhbaatar. - declaration forms : make sure that when you arrive in Russia you get a declaration form and that after you have filled in how much cash you are bringing in ti the country the form gets stamped. Because the customs seem to have different opinions about the importance of the declaration form they may tell you when you arrive in Russia that the declaration form is not necessary, but insist that you would like to have it anyway. Many of the passengers on my train had problems because of not having the form or the form not being stamped. If you don't have a stamped form hide your foreign money and fill in that you have 0 in the exit declaration form. I have heard horrorstories of hones tourists who have lots of money taken and gets told that they will get it back when they enter Russia again. I also met very friendly train guards that gave new exit declaration forms for those who had made the mistake to fill in that they were bringing out money but had no proof of bringing it in.
