Dear John,

This is for my father-in-law. For those who haven't traveled with the Przylucki clan, John has one very interesting habit. He loves to point out which cars we're seeing as we see them. In Korea, you hear a lot of, "There's a Lexus," or "There's a BMW." The cars in Mongolia are worth paying attention to for an entirely different reason.

When we got into the car at the airport, I noticed that the steering wheel was on the right side of the car. I though, "That's interesting, I didn't know they drove on the left side of the road in Mongolia." Then we hit a two-way road still firmly on the right side. That got me wondering if it was common to have a car with the steering wheel on the right side of the car.

The next day, when we had plenty of daylight, I realized why the steering wheel was on the right side of the driver's car; it was Japanese. Most of the vehicles in Mongolia are rather old. Any car that came from Korea has the steering wheel on what we would consider the proper side of the car. Any car imported from Japan has the steering wheel on the right. This isn't true of the newer Lexuses, which are few and far between, but as a general rule: any Honda, Mitsubishi, or Toyota we've seen is more than 15-years-old, and has the steering wheel on the right side. Yet, they still drive on the right side of the road.