It didn’t occur to me until Jill’s dad, Randy, pointed it out but this trip was even wider in scope than I first realised. I knew that between, China, Mongolia and Russia, and the associated changes in people, culture, cuisine and landscape, that we’d be experiencing at least a few eye opening moments during our travels. What I didn’t realise was that with our planned visit to family in west Canada being right before our start on the Trans-Mongolian railway, we’d be heading in one direction and wouldn’t stop until we were back home in Boston. Around the world in just under a month!

As you can imagine, we saw quite a lot and I wrote a suitably comprehensive 40,000 words about our experiences during that time. Even though I always write my travel logs with an audience in mind, this one is far too long for me to consider sharing it with you here. Instead, I’ll walk you through our journey with a photo diary.

Highlights of our two day hike on the Great Wall of China and the surrounding mountainside. At night we set up camp in an old watch tower and cooked our food over a fire. When it got dark, the only sources of light were the moon and the stars. It was very ‘Game of Thrones’; I felt like one of the watchers on the wall.

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, was not at all what I was expecting. The thousand year history made its presence felt but while walking around, things felt strangely modern. The locals spoke excellent English and the women were stylishly dressed in European clothes (not traditional Mongolian attire like I’d been expecting). The city already felt unique, what with the mix of soviet-era buildings, ultra-modern curved glass skyscrapers and the backdrop of both mountains and desert but with all of these other unexpected elements thrown in too, I didn’t know what to make of it.

Baga Gazriin Chuluu, rock formations in the South Gobi desert.

Mongolia is known for its free-spirited nomadic families and like them, we spent our time moving from place to place. Each night in the country following our first was spent with a different one of the Mongolian families that we met on our way. The pictures below were taken while with our first family.

The open road… We didn’t see many of these (roads, that is), while in Mongolia. Most of the places we went were only reachable with a robust off-road vehicle.

Mongolian food was like a mix of several Asian and east Asian cuisines. By and large it tasted pretty good but the amount of fat that Mongolians like to leave on their meat is ridiculous.

We had to stop for goats (and other passing animals) several times while on the road.

Yol Valley.

Jill picked a great time of year for our trip; not only was the weather excellent in each of the countries that we visited but all of the animals in Mongolia (horses, sheep, yaks, goats…) seemed to have given birth to their young right before we arrived. We welcomed the opportunity to revel in their unbearable cuteness.

These gers belonged to the second nomad family that we stayed with.

We came across these wandering camels while on our way somewhere (Mongolians let their camels roam free during summer, the camels often travel hundreds of miles away during that time but always return home).

After having my interest piqued by a cave at the top, I convinced Jill to let me climb this rock face right before we had lunch in the valley below.

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