Mongolia is a country that has many amazing ancient secrets. Mongolia is a land with rich history, vast steppes and simple and noble people. How did Mongolia impress foreigners? Here are quotes of eight people telling their reasons to visit Mongolia.
Most captivating sunrises (and sunsets) in the world
“Dawn in Mongolia was an amazing thing. In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale . . . than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could fully comprehend.”
― Haruki Murakami, best-selling Japanese author
It is the home of living nomadic culture
“Mongolia is an unspoiled wonder, a land where sand dunes sing, horses roam wild and nomadic herders greet strangers with open doors. Keep your itinerary flexible and expect the unexpected.”
― Michael Kohn, Lonely Planet contributor
The birthplace of Chinggis Khaan
“Chinggis Khaan did not leave a monument to himself. Temple, pyramid, palace, castle or canal, and even his grave was left unmarked in the remote area where he grew up and hunted as a boy. As he himself wished, his body could wither away so long as his great Mongol nation lived – it is that nation today that is his monument.”
― Jack Weatherford, author of “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World”
It’s a place everyone can explore their imagination
“I still haven’t been to Mongolia. I want to ride a horse across the Mongolian steppes and try to imagine what it was like to be in Genghis Khan’s horde.”
― Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States of America
It doesn’t get any wilder than Mongolian wildlife
“For these horses to just be allowed to roam around and they don’t take off and leave . . . is kind of amazing. Everywhere in America you see animals and you also see fences. Here [in Mongolia] it’s really about the love and respect that man gives to the animal that they all stay together.”
― Julia Roberts, Academy Award-winning actress
Mongolians are the most hospitable people in the world
“No matter how much one reads about the tradition by which strangers are welcomed into a random ger, it is remarkable to experience.”
— Joe Rohde, Vice President of Creative at Walt Disney Imagineering
The singing sand dunes, camels and so much more of the Gobi
“Shaped by the wind into countless curves and bathed in countless shadows, the dune rose in marvelous mystery. Sand but not desert, high but not mountain, this ultimate dune towered well over 300 meters (1,000 feet); its slopes merged into an edge that gleamed like a blade. I climbed the knife-edge, breathing hard after a hundred yards because each step upward plunged my foot deeper into the fine sand. I felt as if I were struggling with the stuff of time in a giant hourglass. My footsteps faded away in a living metaphor of human passage upon this land.”
— Thomas B. Allen, National Geographic
So you can stay in a handmade ger with a local family
“Is it too cold for us? We turn the heater on. Is it too hot? We bump up the air conditioning. If we need food, we go to the supermarket. If we need help, we ring all sorts of customer services. Out here you belong to the landscape. You must know how to maneuver it, when and how to move with the seasons and what to do with them. Helping each other out, neighborly support and community, means being embedded in this merciless nature with the precious gift of belonging – something that has been long lost in western cultures.”
