Customer Reviews

Mongolia: Empire of the Steppes (Odyssey Illustrated Guides)

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Like the Iran guide in this series, this book features good facts for people considering going to Mongolia, and enough pictures to make you seriously consider it. As with the Iran guide, it doesn't feature all the indepth fact and figures that would make it a helpful guide inside of the country, but it makes a great fact book. There's a brief section on the language in the back, oodles of address for getting a visa, and plenty of goregeous pictures. I can't think of a downside to this book, because it fulfills its purpose perfectly. Excellent work.

Unfortunately this wasn't published until a few days after I got back from my trip. This guide contains excellent descriptions of the cities and sites, along with the historic background you need to really appreciate Mongolia in the 21st century. Reading it after I got back helped refresh my memory - and put names to some of the photographs I took.

The only downside to this book is that the maps - a handful covering about five aimags (provinces) apiece - are so high-level as to be almost useless. The Lonely Planet guide, though out-of-date and surprisingly negative - has more and better maps.