Best Selling Cars Around The Globe: Trans Siberian Series Part 12: Terelj National Park, Mongolia

After giving you my first impressions on the unique Mongolian car landscape, I now take you to Terelj National Park, 80 km East of the capital Ulaanbaatar and already complete countryside. What I first observed in Ulaanbaatar is still valid here, namely a huge part of the car landscape is composed of the first two generations Toyota Prius. I have also seen proportionally more Toyota Verossas in this part of the country. More after the jump…

If you can’t wait for the next report, you can follow my trip in real time here, or check out 174 other car markets on my blog.

As far as new models are concerned, the large SUV trend I described in Ulaanbaatar is even more pronounced here, even though the road from Ulaanbaatar to Telej is sealed all the way and in perfect condition. Given the Terelj Hotel, the most luxurious hotel in the country, it’s a typical weekend destination for cashed-up inhabitants of Ulaanbaatar. I spotted many Toyota Land Cruiser on my way to Terelj and a few Lexus LX, Infiniti QX and Nissan Patrol.

This was for me the opportunity to discover the ‘real’ Mongolia, sleep in a traditional ger and check out the eagles, camels, yaks and horses that are emblematic of the country.I have had a few questions from you asking whether Mongolia was already too ‘commercialised’. While it is obvious that the country is probably a lot more developed and touristy than a decade ago, it is not a walk in the park and you have to ‘earn’ your Mongolian experience.

What is heart-warming is seeing a large part of the Mongolian people now actually living the life they had been dreaming about for decades and enjoying every minute of it. While they have embraced consumerism whole-heartedly, they are doing so very pragmatically, with caution and most importantly without losing themselves, in a typically Buddhist way. The Mongolian modern identity is unique and has a multitude of facets including modern ‘Mongol pop’ music which mixes traditional instruments with contemporary sounds, and very traditional costumes it is not rare to see worn in the street or around ger camps.

Most of the heavy trucks doing road work are Chinese: the Foton Auman is the most popular with construction companies (some with an interesting and very prominent ‘Produced by Foton Daimler’ announcement on their side), as are the Sinotruck and Dongfeng brands. I also saw a Wuzheng truck which is a brand I didn’t know of before…

That’s all for Terelj, and for once I can’t tell you what the next stop will be because I am not sure whether there actually are cars there! So it’ll be a surprise…