Chuluut Gorge In Mongolia

Mongolia has broadly three types of terrain. Towards the north there are mountains shared with Russia. The south has the Gobi desert shared with China. The middle portion is just steppes.

A steppe is essentially a region that’s not wet enough to support trees and not dry enough to be called a desert. The only trees you see are on mountains and near water bodies like lakes and rivers. The rest of the land is mainly large flat valleys between these small mountains and hills. Even the mountains and hills don’t have cliffs and steep slopes. There are no ghat sections where the road winds up and down. To get across a pass between two hills you basically ride straight up and straight down. Let’s just say that the steppes of Mongolia are a difficult place to commit suicide by jumping off something.

Which is why a gorge like the one in these pictures becomes a tourist attraction, and I have to assume, a lucrative suicide point as well. This is the Chuluut river flowing through a gorge running along the only east-west highway of the country.

I’m as serious as I can be when I say that after riding around the steppes of Mongolia for 1,750 kms in 7 days, this is the only place I believe a successful suicide could happen. In all other places you might just end up twisting an ankle or something.