Crossing the border from Russia into Mongolia saw the first use of our shiny new Carnet de Passages en Douane, which was kindly prepped for us in rapid time by Sue-Ellen at the Australian Automobile Association (see the earlier post).
It’s tough to know how long a given border is going to take to cross. The one between Kyakhta (Russian Federation) and Altanbulag (Mongolia) operates 24/7, so one should expect it has busy times and quiet times. In our case, we rolled up late Saturday morning and had a ~20 minute wait before being admitted into the Russian area. We were marshalled to an inspection area and directed into a Customs Office where our import papers from Vladivostok were stamped and taken back and we were given an inspection form.
Back downstairs and an inspection proceeded by three Customs agents and a military policeman with sniffer dog. One of the Customs personnel videoed the exercise on a little action cam.
The inspection was conducted swiftly and in a politely professional manner, with one of the agents speaking English and chattily interested in our trip. Seems the inspection was most keen to confirm that we weren’t leaving with guns/ammunition or carrying morphine.
From there the next step was passport control where we were stamped out and our exit cards were collected.
All up the Russian side took less than an hour.
Onto the Mongolian side where, after another 10-minute wait, we were setup with what was essentially an entry checklist for the car - a little paper slip requiring five separate stamps.
“Survivors Ready?”
Stamps were awarded at different counters for:
Receiving the slip itself
(Driver) passing passport control (confirmation of visa)
Confirmation of ownership (NSW car registration/CPD Carnet)
Disinfection payment (for the car ~AUD$1), disinfection occurring at a dip trough on the way in
Inspection (or not, very cursory in our case) of the car
No exit through the boom gate until you’ve got your five stamps.
From there the final steps are a ‘road tax’ (~AUD$6) and 3rd party insurance (~AUD$50).
Elapsed time on the Mongolia side was again well less than an hour; so in total under 2 hours gate-to-gate.
The most time consuming step on the Mongolian side was the completion of the Carnet. Sue-Ellen had helpfully included a pamphlet with instructions for Customs Officers on both entry and exit of the vehicle.
Complicating factor in this situation was that the Mongolian Customs Officer spoke way better German than English, so I found myself essentially translating the instructions into German on the fly.
No problem though, it was all in excellent humour and we would’ve got there in the end regardless.
Not really knowing what to expect at our first land border, we turned on the charm and this I think is a pretty sound default. Most of the personnel we dealt with were super friendly, excited to meet a couple of Australians and as keen to make a good impression as hosts as we were to be respectful of their duties.
So first land border done and dusted… 33 remaining if my math is correct!