our travel route + means

mongolia is a huge and landlocked country, with 1,566,500 square km in area (put portugal, spain, italy, france, belgium and the benelux together – and you get the size of mongolia). besides from the period of mongol conquest under Chinggis Khaan and Kublai Khaan, mongolia was until the 20th century about twice its present size. a large chunk of siberia was once part of mongolia, but it is now securely controlled by russia, and inner mongolia is now firmly part of china.

it is also one of the highest countries in the world, with an average elevation of 1580 meters above sea level. the country boasts several different kinds of landscape: classical desert with cliffs and sand dunes; desert steppe; grasslands; mountain forest steppe; taiga with larch and pine forests; mountain ranges of over 4,000 meters above sea level which are permanently snow-capped.


this was our travel route, across the Gobi (Southern Mongolia) and Central (+ parts of Northern) Mongolia:



this was our jeep, the true old russian style:



and the inside of it, with lots of cables hanging around more or less loose:




we also took the Trans-Mongolian (1,121km from irkutsk to UB):