While the roads in Mongolia are always a challenge, this one was especially dire – a catastrophe of jarring potholes and ruts that rattled our Russian van to the core.

We were lucky enough to shoot south of Ulaanbaatar – the country’s gritty yet surprisingly charming capital – on a sealed two-lane highway, but after a couple of smooth hours our driver turned off onto the roughest of dirt tracks, where I gazed out of the dust-smudged window onto a wide landscape made surprisingly lush by ample summer rains.

We may have been in the Gobi, but for a time it resembled the sweeping, nearly-infinite prairie of North America .

Derrière-numbing van rides are just the price of admission in Mongolia, at least if you want to experience the natural splendour that the country offers in spades.

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