The One Where I Almost Get a Shower
I am more than a little discombobulated when a bunch of other tourists show up at the best ger ever, and make camp. Despite the...
Category: Places
Best… Ger… EVER
This is the view from the best ger ever, a herd of horses passing by, untrimmed manes trailing in the breeze. It is, in fact,...
Crossing the Pass — and Mongolian Horses
The mountains that divide Khovsgol Nuur from the Darkhad Depression aren’t terribly mountainous. They’re misty, sure, and a little forbidding, but rather rounded compared to...
On Khovsgol Nuur
There’s a pleasant rhythm to a long journey, and within an hour or so we’re in it: spotting the different types of wildflowers, keeping an...
Horses and Khatgal
“When I was 17,” Ganbaa explains, “I was a wrestler. And a group of us went to Russia, wrestling. There were no tall buildings in...
12 Reasons I Love Mongolia
Isolation In the least densely populated country on earth, expect big, empty, silent landscapes, huge skies and a sense of incredible space. Off the beaten...
A Town Named Moron
Mörön sits in a swirl of grubby sand, backed by jagged mountains, giving onto plains grazed to a fine yellow stubble. It’s an epic setting...
Adventures in Mongolian Public Transport
We leave a sunny Ulaanbaatar on the night train to Erdenet, because we’re on our way to Khatgal to see the reindeer people and it...
The Mongolian State Circus
The Mongolian State Circus in Ulaanbaatar stands empty, most of the time, its golden-tiled big top a monument to the glory days when a Communist...
Smoking in Mongolia. More Difficult Than You’d Think.
After over a quarter of a century as a smoker, and a spectacularly misspent youth, I like to think that I have a nose for...