What looks on a map like a major road is often not more than a tyre track track in the dirt, sand or mud. Mongolia has more than 40,000 km of highways but thereof only 1,900 km are paved. The average distance traveled per hour on the latter is about 60-70 km/h (at least with the common Russian-built minivans or jeeps; that's what we were travelling around in our Gobi Desert tour, which I will talk about in another post) while on dirt roads it is a mere 30-50 km/h. Of course, this is assuming no breakdowns.
Driving is not recommended without a driver, says the Lonely Planet. Outside Ulaanbaatar and a few (major) cities there is no signposting for the dirt roads heading in all directions. Hence, the a full page of GPS coordinates in the mentioned travel guide comes in handy. Towns or even villages with petrol stations or shops are scarce.
In the capital traffic is coming to a hold with cars, SUVs and minivans (lots of Korean and Japanese) at peak hours - even when "creating" additional lanes on the (not paved) shoulder or the oncoming side of the road. The fleet, crawling over potholes and through puddles, is a mix of both left- and right-hand driver vehicles. Drivers are quite aggressive, cutting off or thwarting others constantly.
Looking for a taxi? Every car could be a potential taxi. There are no, apart from 2 or 3 which we saw over the two weeks of our travel, marked taxis. Simply put your arm out at the roadside and a driver will stop soon. The price is currently 1,000 MNT (Mongolian tögrög, ₮), about 55 euro cents, per kilometre.
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