Ulaanbaatar is the coldest national capital in the world, and it sits in a valley at about thirteen hundred and fifty metres, surrounded by bare hills, with the Tuul River running along its southern edge. About eight hundred and fifty thousand people live here, nearly half the country's population, in a mix of Soviet-era apartment blocks, glass towers and the ger districts that spread up the hillsides, where families live in felt tents with a stove and a fence. In winter, coal smoke fills the valley, and temperatures drop to minus thirty or lower.
The city has a few treasures. Gandantegchinlen Monastery, a working Buddhist monastery that survived the purges of the 1930s, has a huge gilded statue of Avalokiteshvara, and the monks' chanting in the morning is a haunting sound. Sukhbaatar Square, ringed by government buildings, has a huge seated statue of Genghis Khan, and the Zaisan memorial on a hilltop gives a view over the whole valley. The Naadam festival, in July, with wrestling, archery and horse racing, is the great national event, and the whole city goes to the stadium.
The ride from here goes north, into the green hills of the Selenge region, toward Noyon Uul, a mountain range where the Xiongnu, the nomadic confederation that rivalled the Han Chinese two thousand years ago, buried their elite. A Russian expedition opened some of the tombs in 1924 and found astonishing things: felt wall hangings, embroidered textiles, Chinese silk and lacquerware, and a Greek-style tapestry, showing the reach of the steppe's trade. The road north is paved as far as Darkhan, a fast, straight run across open steppe with huge skies, and the side tracks are gravel.
Traffic in Ulaanbaatar itself is dreadful, with jams that last for hours, so leave very early. Fuel is available in the city and in the main towns along the road, but stations are far apart in the countryside, so fill whenever you can. Mongolia drives on the right, in theory, though many vehicles have the steering wheel on the right, which makes overtaking tricky. Summer is the best season, with green grass, though thunderstorms can be sudden.