photos just don't do it justice

I find there are two things I keep saying about Mongolia.

First, that I frustratingly couldn't fit the country into my camera, and second, that its extremes of weather, and the swiftness with which one extreme followed the other, gave me climate whiplash.

I started off in UB, which to my delight was unseasonably warm for the time of year — daytime temperatures of around 27°C instead of the 15°C I'd expected.

Then I headed south, towards the Gobi, and the days got hotter. If you've ever been...