Terms & Conditions

Mongolia is a landlocked country, situated in central Asia, sandwiched between China and Russia. Just this one sentence defines much about the country. It is surrounded and it has had to define its own existence through struggle. It lies at the heart of continental Asia, which has defined its climate.

Nowhere in the country lies lower than 500m above sea level. It is bigger than France and Germany combined and is one of the most thinly populated countries on earth. Apart from two sets of remote islands, only Greenland has fewer inhabitants per square kilometre. Half of the small population lives in the capital, Ulaanbataar whilst the other half lives in what Mongolians call ‘the Countryside’.

It is a blessedly and beautifully different country. There are no field boundaries in the Countryside. There are not even any fields. Instead, the plains, the mountains, the dunes and the forests stretch to infinity. There are few roads and most of those that there are have not been surfaced and are rough tracks, snaking to thinly-mapped places.

In the summer, it is a green country and warm. Rivers flow and animals eat. Temperatures reach mid-20s Centigrade. It does not rain much.

In the winter, it is a cold, cold country. The wind blows out of Siberia. The sky is an amazing blue most days and the air sparkles with tiny, frozen ice crystals. Winter lasts for more than half the year and temperatures often reach -35 Centigrade. It does not (usually) snow much.

The people in the Countryside are hospitable, living traditional lives, away from piped water, electricity and gas, away from the stresses of city life. You may meet a few of them and you can imagine the rest of the country living as you see those whom you meet living, herding sheep and goats, camels, horses, yaks (at higher altitude) and cattle (lower down).

The country has a rich history.

• Most people will have heard of Chinggis Khan (that’s his title and not his name). However, Chinggis Khan was not the first empire builder to emerge from Mongolia.
• The Xiongnu, originating in the wider diaspora of Mongolia, conquered China, much of India, Central Asia, the Persian Empire and most of Europe; you may know them as the Huns. Attila has a reputation for savagery, but, in fact, originally and until he (probably) had his brother assassinated, his Kingdom represented only half the Hunnic Empire.
• The Hunnic Empire was a sophisticated and structured Empire, reported in history as being ‘barbarian’ because Roman (and Chinese) chroniclers recorded any non-Roman state as being barbarian.
• The Turks also originated in Mongolia. Over more than a thousand years, but most particularly after the battel of Manzikert in 1071, they dismantled most of the Eastern Roman Empire, much of the Middle East, Egypt and the Balkans, reaching the gates of Vienna. Their Empire was the Ottoman Empire, which only fell at the end of the first World War.
• The Mongols, under Chinggis Khan (whose name was actually Temujin), his sons and grandsons, starting at the beginning of the 13th century, created the largest land empire ever recorded. In typical Central Asian fashion, the Mongol Empire was divided into segments reporting to a cental power. Its reach stretched from China to what is now Germany Its armies fought from the Middle East to central Europe and sought to invade Japan. Its embassies (and its postal system) reached from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
• Earlier in time, Bronze Age Mongolia is recorded in petroglyphs and tombs.
• More recently, you will find Mongolia in the Soviet sphere of influence. Much of the country was fought over during the Russian Civil War. The fall of the Soviet Union at the end of the 20th century led to the eatablishment of the current Mongolian democracy.
• Mongolian culture stretches from Lake Baikal in Russia in the North to Inner Mongolia in China in the South. Much of the Mongolian diaspora therefore lies outside the boundaries of the present-day state.

And Mongolian nature, present and past, is all but unspoilt. There are bears and wolves, snow leopards and lynxes and innumerable species of birds. Lines of gazelles. Taimen to fish, dinosaur fossils to find and eagles to fly; there is so much to see and do, so much to explore.