THE SPIRIT OF GENGHIS KHAN

AN INHABITED NATION

Mongolia is about the same size as Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy put together, but has less than 3 million people.
Just over 40% of the population lives in the capital, Ulaan Baatar.
This shows that Mongolia is pretty much uninhabited.

You can appreciate its essence by spending a few days in the vastness of the steppe, sleeping in the warmth of a ger, surrounded by silence and uncontaminated nature.

ARRIVE IN MONGOLIA

Plane

The Chinggis Khaan International Airport (that’s the Mongolian pronunciation of Gengis Khan) in Ulaan Baatar is mainly connected with Moscow, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Train

You can also get here by train.

Many travellers get to know Mongolia through the Trans-Siberian Train.
The train from Siberia to Beijing, crosses Mongolia and is also know as the Trans-Mongolian Train.

Mongolia is more than just a country that connects Russia and China.
It’s a perfect place for a break to recharge in its vast and unspoilt natural spaces.

From Russia to Ulaan Baatar

The train leaves the Russian station of Naushki (Наушки) after replacing the locomotive and leaving some wagons in Russia.

The train arrives in Sukhbaatar, the border town that marks the start of Mongolia.
The name is in honour of the hero (“baatar”) Damdin Sukh, a Mongol nationalist partisan who formed the revolutionary army and, with the help of the Soviet communists, defeated the Chinese army.
He set up the People’s Republic of Mongolia in 1921.

The train runs through green meadows until you see the first ger in the windows, and you arrive at the capital station.

From China to Ulaan Baatar

When the train arrives in the Chinese station of Erlian, it passes through a huge construction site.
The gauge of the Russian and Mongolian tracks are different from all the others because they’re the legacy of the Soviet Union.
The small lifting cranes lift the train completely off the ground, which allows the mechanics to adjust the measurements.
It’ll take them more than two hours to get this done.
Then the train leaves to the small station of Zamin Uud, which is the border with Mongolia.

Once you’ve got through passport control, the race resumes until you reach the Gobi Desert.
The wagons are quickly filled with sand, dust and earth, making it difficult to breathe.

After a few miles in the steppe, you start to see lots of gers, which is a sign that you’re getting close to Ulaan Baatar.

WHAT TO SEE IN MONGOLIA

Here’s a quick overview of what you can see in Mongolia.

Ulaan Baatar

Just over 40% of Mongolia’s 3 million residents live in Ulaan Baatar, which is the country’s capital.

Sukhbaatar Square is the city centre.
Right om the middle of all the skyscrapers and the parliament building, there’s a statue in honour of the hero (in Mongolian, “baatar”) Damdin Sukh.
He was a Mongol nationalist partisan who defeated the Chinese with his revolutionary army, with help from the Soviet communists.
This led to the formation of the People’s Republic of Mongolia in 1921.

You can see dinosaur and fossil collection at the Natural History Museum, which is mainly from the Gobi Desert.

As I leave the city centre, I meet lots of people who are surprised to see a foreigner in Ulaan Baatar.
There aren’t many foreigners here, and everyone wants to chat.
It’s like being in an ancient oriental country from the 1200s, where most of the population has only seen “western consumer items” in a market, so they’re pretty satisfied and happy.

Gun Galuut Nature Reserve

I think the authentic Mongolia lies beyond Ulaan Baatar.
After about three hours of walking along unmarked dirt roads through green, uninhabited hills, you’ll reach the Guun Galuut nature reserve.

The landscape in the middle of the hills is amazing.
The river crosses the green steppe, and there are two stunning structures surrounded by about twenty ger.
It’s basically a Mongolian-style hotel.

The days pass in complete peace and quiet, although there are plenty of activities in the area to keep you entertained (walks, kayaking on the river, fishing, horse riding, etc.).

It’s difficult to descrive the feeling of seeing the green steppe, mountains on the horizon, blue skies, no noise and maybe just one ger in all that land.

Monument to Genghis Khan

Just a few kilometres from Ulaan Baatar, in the middle of the steppe, you’ll find a real cathedral in the desert: the impressive monument to the national hero Genghis Khan.

It’s not widely known that in just over 25 years, with an army of only 100,000 men, he created the largest empire in human history.
It spanned 31 million square kilometres, from the Balkans to the Pacific and from India to Siberia.

His weapons of choice were planning, organisation, revenge and ferocity.
He was a strategist, a planner, a vengeful and ferocious warrior.

One estimate suggests that Genghis Khan was responsible for the deaths of around 37.5 million people.
At the same time, a 2003 genetic study found that he and his male relatives had so many children that 16 million men currently living in the former Mongol kingdom (about 0.5% of the world’s male population) are descendants of Genghis Khan, the conqueror of the world.

The Gobi Desert

The Gobi was my first experience of the desert.
It was certainly a tough journey, with sand, dust and earth getting into the train’s cracks and making the air almost unbreathable.
That’s what I was expecting from the desert.

It’s amazing to be here, seeing what you’ve only studied in geography books.
The Gobi Desert has a very wide temperature range.
The temperature can drop to -40°C in January and climb to 45°C in July.

There isn’t much in the way of flora, but there are plenty of animals, including camels, gazelles, wolves and desert cats.

The Gobi Desert is a real goldmine for palaeontologists.
That’s where you’ll find skeletons of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures in perfect condition, up to 80 million years old.
It’s believed that violent storms buried them quickly, preserving them for millions of years.