Ulan Bator, it turns out, "is not only the world's coldest capital, it is also the most polluted." Half the residents live in tents or yurts. Fatland is both admiring and appalled at the sheer grandiosity of "the world's largest statue of a horseman, a stainless steel monstrosity that stands 40 metres high and weighs 250 metric tons. The statue was financed by Mongolia's then newly elected president, businessman and judo champion, Khaltmaagiin Battulga." Unsurprisingly, it represents the country's founding warlord, Genghis Khan, whose armies "conquered a seventh of the world's surface. On horseback." Before heading into the Mongolian taiga, Fatland is strenuously warned: " Whatever you do, don't eat anything that looks suspect. The reindeer people cast spells and have their own way of making girls fall in love with them. . . . It's the truth. I have seen it myself!" In fact, the reindeer herders turn out to be quite courtly to the fair-haired Norwegian. Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Kidnapped' is not just an adventure tale, it's a timely novel about politics and dissent In the Kazakhstan city of Almaty, Fatland spends a tipsy afternoon at the Arasan Baths, "the largest and best spa in Central Asia." Promised a tour of Baikonur's Cosmodrome, the old launch site of the Soviet space program, she is met by a pathetic tour guide who can't bear to tell her that the place is locked and deserted. He suggests they go bowling instead. For Fatland, nearly all government-sponsored tours verge on absurdist bureaucratic comedy, often culminating in a worshipful visit to some Great Leader's kitschy monument or memorial. Border crossings, however, are never laughing matters. Some customs officials don't know what contact lenses are. While on board the Caspian Sea ferry to Baku, Fatland ends up locking herself in a room to escape drunken truck drivers. Once on land again, she encounters two conspiracy theorists who are convinced that Vladimir Putin is actually dead. "Everyone know that. The real Putin died of cancer many years ago. The person who says he is Putin now is his look-alike." The proof? "The real Putin could speak fluent German," but "the lookalike always has to use an interpreter when he is talking to Angela Merkel." Fatland loves Georgia for its beautiful scenery, delicious cuisine and its party-animal ways.