The trip to camp.

We left on the 1:38 hard sleeper from Shenyang to Hailaer to make it to the camp.  Shenyang is in NorthEast China near North Korea and Hailaer in is farther inland and up, near the Mongolian and Russian border.  A hard sleeper has six berths per compartment and the compartments are open to the hallway.  They are actually pretty comfortable and wonderfully cheap!

Shenyang Train Station

Our train was very old and not air conditioned.  That was a surprise but not too bad.

Elisabeth in the middle bunk.

View of village along the way.

Church in village along the way.

The station in Hailaer.  It took 19 hours to get there but it really was pretty fun.  We had books and friends to make the time pass.  No one slept well but we all survived.

In Hailaer, we met the camp director and had wonton soup for breakfast.  Then we got on the long distance bus to camp.  Almost everything in the area of China is in multiple languages.

Train station instructions in Mongolian, Chinese and English.

Yurts off in the distance.

We arrived in the small town of Labu Dalin, where signs are also in Russian, Chinese, English and Mongolian.

We took a small mini-bus the rest of the way to camp.

View at the camp.

The first night, we were taken out to dinner with the camp staff.  Elisabeth and her friend proved their dissecting skills.

On the way back to the camp- amazing full double rainbow.  Incredible!