Exploring Mongolia with Jasper Becker : Kathika Travel Website

mgl57 Jasper Becker is an enthusiast who was one of the first Western travelers to explore Mongolia after Westerners got easier access to the country in 1990, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mongolia: Travels in the Untamed Land is the result of Becker’s travels and the book starts out with a potted history of this intriguing country.

Becker then starts the narrative of his travels by explaining some of his experiences in Beijing, itself formerly a Mongolian city. Politics, anthropology, economics and history are intertwined with local people and Becker’s travels.

His first trip to modern day Mongolia was in 1989, after asking for two years for a visa to visit as a journalist. In the book, Becker recounts that his flight was delayed because they were waiting for a VIP passenger, a Mongolian minister on one of the first official political visits to China. Unfortunately the minister collapsed and died of liver failure while at a banquet and it ended up being his corpse that was loaded on to Becker’s flight. This was certainly an ominous start and it’s a good preview to Becker’s next experiences in Mongolia.

It’s a fascinating tale but my major complaint about this new edition is that it requires good eyesight. It includes several useful maps, but the place names are almost too tiny to read, and even the font size for the main text is uncomfortably small. If you can get past that, you’ll enjoy tales of Karakorum, Buryatia and the Gobi Desert, among many others.

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