"How was Mongolia? Is it worth a trip?"
"Maybe."
The “maybe” isn’t so much about whether Mongolia is worth the trip; I have absolutely no reservations about the beautiful country and its people. It has more to do with what kind of traveler you are. If your preferred vacation involves some serious R&R, Mongolia might not be the most ideal destination for you.
At some point along the road that led us away from Ulaanbaatar, our Russian van took a turn off road and into the Mongolian wilderness. We wouldn’t see a paved road again for a very long time. The sheer vastness of the country could be felt in the amount of time we had to spend in transit (average of three hours from site to site) and in the growing monotony of the landscape which sometimes didn't seem to change for hours. I felt it in the form of motion sickness. Motion sickness had never been a problem for me on road trips, but it began hitting me in intense waves less than an hour into starting up again on the mercilessly rugged terrain.
The seemingly slow passage of time magnified by my exhausting struggle to contain my nausea created the illusion of a monotonous landscape - one which was immediately broken by the magnificence of reality in moments like this. The silhouette of a train of wild camels on the horizon seemed like a mirage before I stepped out of the van to approach it on solid ground.
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