If you’d asked me a decade earlier why I hadn’t been to Mongolia, I’d have said that I was disinclined to spend long days on rough tracks or off-road seeing things that were barely worth seeing.

But in 2019 I went anyway.

I was right about the rough roads. For most of our two and a half weeks we were thrown about like those little balls in the Lotto machine, often for six or more hours a day. There were times when I thought “Never again.” Our boxy Russian vehicle (I’m not sure whether to call it a van, car or bus) had begun life as an ambulance, but was now lovingly fitted out by its owner-driver.

But I’ll leave you to decide after you’ve looked through this book whether things were barely worth seeing. Our trip concentrated on the central and southern areas, including Gobi, then finished by flying to the far west to witness the shenanigans of an annual eagle festival.