After my Ruminations on Russia here are my Musings on Mongolia:
#1 I’m not the biggest fan of cows but the cows here are cute and fluffy especially the baby ones.
#2 Mongolia is one of my favourite countries ever!
#3 People still stare at us……maybe it’s our drop-dead good looks?
#4 Mongolians are very friendly. If you are stopped for lunch or camping they will come over and say hello. Obviously with language being a barrier, and because Mongolians are nomadic, the ‘conversation’ always reverts to where you have come from and where you are going. They will stay for a few minutes and then potter off.
#5 There are hardly any tarmac roads in Mongolia (apart from the major routes.) There are mostly rough tracks through the steppe. Unfortunately, what happens along the well trodden routes is that as a track gets too rough new tracks are formed. This means that over time a single route can turn into a 10 or more lane ‘motorway’ that snakes through the countryside.
#6 Mongolia is vast – 1.566 million square km but has less than 3 million people!
#7 As a result wild camping is incredibly easy. Just drive off the main route and find a quiet spot – we have camped in the most beautiful scenery imaginable.
#8 Horses, cows, goats, sheep and eagles abound (as well as camels in the deserts and yaks in the north).
#9 There are lots of tour companies, in Russian minivans and 4WDs, ferrying tourist groups from A to B.
#10 The houses and towns look very similar to their Russian counterparts apart from one very obvious thing. Mongolia is so much more colourful – where roofs in Russia would be brown and grey here they are a multitude of colours: dusty pink, yellow, turquoise, orange, blue and green corrugated iron roofs sit on top equally colourful buildings.