A Day in Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar, where the morning arrives in smoke and steam

The first sound is a stove door closing somewhere beyond the fence. Then a dog barks once, a truck shifts into gear on the road below, and the dark room slowly gathers shape around the kettle. Ulaanbaatar feels less like a capital at this hour than a bowl held between mountains. Apartment blocks sit in the center. Whole neighborhoods of fenced yards climb the rim. You are waking on the Asian stop in our rotation, in Mongolia, in a city that can be brutally cold and surprisingly intimate at the same time.