This post is part of my Mongolia blog post series. 

This is the first of a series of blog posts of my recent trip to Mongolia with Jeffrey Chapman and David duChemin from Within the Frame fame. The 10 day trip started in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, followed by the ancient capital Kharakhorum and continued down to the Gobi desert and all the way back to Ulaanbaatar for a total of about 2200 km. An average of 220 km a day doesn’t sound like much, unless you know the conditions of the roads. Most of the trip was spent driving on backcountry paths and made-up roads through an endlessly beautiful landscape.

Paule and I arrived a few days before the start of this adventure. This allowed us to adjust to the 15 hours time difference and explore Ulaanbaatar (UB) on our own, something we love to do.

UB is a big construction site. There are cranes all over the place. Following image is taken from our hotel room. It shows how the new high-rises replace the shanty-towns that surrounds the downtown area. It is a very common sight to have old and new mixed together.

The central square is dominated by the parliament building

with the Chinggis Khan statue at its center.

Thanks to the new constructions, small but beautiful parks pop up here and there with little sculptures along the way.

While walking around town, we couldn’t resist to have a little expresso before we headed out to the Gobi desert. As it turned out, this was the last expresso for the next 10 days.