Advertisement
Published: July 23rd 2023
Our next adventure took us about 4 hours to the west to the town of Kharkorin, the location of the former capital established by Chenghis Khan - Karakhorum.
Erdene Zuu Monastery Our first stop was the Erdene Zuu Monastery, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery constructed in the late 16th century. We were told we had 90 minutes here, which seemed like a lot, but there was actually quite a bit to see and we wound up a bit rushed, or at least, I was. It was originally intended for the surrounding wall to have 108 stupas, 108 being an important number in Tibetan buddhism, but I did not count. It was also constructed using ruins from the old capital, which did not last long. At its peak, the monastery held 62 temples and housed over 1,000 monks. However, it was almost completely destroyed by the communist leader in 1939, with only the outer wall and three small temples dedicated to the early buddhist leaders remaining. During the Soviet era, religion was banned but Stalin said to keep the remaining monastery open so visiting foreign dignitaries would be shown that there was religion allowed. (The whole banning of religion by the
Soviets is something that I was completely unaware of until about 2 years ago when I started to visit these former Soviet states. Wild!).
After the fall of communism in around 1990, the monastery was restored to a proper religious center which is currently in use. We saw monks chanting and praying in the main temple while we visited. We also so the three older temples that remained following the destruction, and each depicted a different phase of the life of Buddha. Accessory structures by the old temples housed some older paintings and tapestries. I tell you, I have enjoyed visiting Buddhist monasteries and temples in Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka.... they are all so peaceful and easy. Here, it seems to be a darker side of Buddhism where they depict many monsters and enforce the idea of suffering to achieve peace in death. I need to think about it and research it some more, but this would not be the last encounter with this darker side.
Anja Ger camp We then made our way to our last ger camp for the night and where we would have lunch. Lunch was yummy and more typical, fresh tomatoes,
cheese and pesto and a stir fry. The camp was labelled as an "eco-lodge' and the owner spoke French fluently, pleasantly surprising two of our group who were French. As we encountered many people with some French understanding, we asked E why it was so. She said that in the early 1980's (I think), one of their leaders attended a convention in France and just fell in love with the area, wound up living part of his time there. They built up relations with the country and just started to have this back and forth between the two, leading to more Mongolians picking French to learn as another language. I found that quite interesting.
Our gers were also very nice and tastefully decorated. My favorite feature of this one was the changing screen in the corner - a nice touch. I also just in general loved the way the wooden furniture was painted with the generally geometric or floral designs. I especially love the orange accents.
Kharakorum Museum After lunch, we went back into town to visit the Kharakorum Museum. First, we sat to watch a short film about the 2011 discovery and excavation of a tomb
of an nomadic aristocrat in a nearby location. The Canadian narrator could not sound more bored if he tried (I theorized he thought he would be narrating for BBC documentaries, but instead had to start with far-flung Mongolia). However, aside from the vocal delivery, I found the video very interesting. They determined it belonged to a 7th century aristocrat. The tomb had an entrance, four chambers, two annexes (for religious reasons), and a main chamber, and was 7.5m in height. They found over 40 murals, and hundreds of items of gold, silver, bronze, iron, clay, wood, silk and cotton. Some of the items included clay figurines of men and women that we saw in the first part of the exhibition room. The room itself was well done, depicting many of the other items such as gold decorations for clothing, cremated remains and pieces of a wooden coffin, and clay animals.
The rest of the museum was also impressive. I first was drawn to a scale model of the former capital, where they had a temple on a hill and lots of buildings. The capital was identified by Genghis Khan in around 1220, but it was his successor Ogedei who
made the capital into a proper town starting in 1235, after he had defeated the Jin dynasty (seriously, I cannot wait to read on some of the history of this area). He had a palace established, finished within a year. In the years to follow, the town prospered, was a trade center and was known for a city of religious tolerance and inclusivity. Kublai Khan came to power in 1260 and moved his capital elsewhere, reducing its importance until about 100 years later, before being completely razed in 1388. In the centuries following, there were efforts to re-establish the area as a great city, but nothing came of it.
The surrounding walls of the museums highlighted the different eras and empires of Mongolia, and could be quite detailed. We were still on a bit of a schedule, but I could have probably stayed here another hour or two. However, I enjoyed reading about how all the empires fit together, how the great Mongolian Empire came to be and how the successors were related to Genghis Khan. There were other artefacts in display cases (no photos allowed). One of my favorites, was the display of scrolls between the Pope Innocent
the IV and Guyuk Khan in 1246. The Pope's letter was a page and a half of flowery words of the pope himself and God and Christians, basically preaching to the Khan, and only at the end of the letter did he get to his outrage at the conquering of Christian lands (understandable, I think). The Khan's response seemed quite snarky, asking how the pope could know what God thinks and essentially telling him to come to him to submit (knowing he never would) otherwise they are his enemies. It was quite an interesting response that had me laughing actually.
There was a gift shop with somewhat interesting items. I saw some books, but they were not quite what I was looking for - either a concise history of the area or a book describing some of the exhibitions in the museum in more detail.
Calligraphy Center Next we visited the Mongolian Calligraphy Art Center, which I was excited about, but it was quite different than what I expected. Tamir Samandbadraa started this center to teach calligraphy to locals and mentor future artists. So, it was more of an art gallery, with calligraphy the theme. Or, maybe
the theme was more about "abstracts" as that was said about 50 times. Supposedly, Tamir won a worldwide competition to be known as the best calligrapher in the world. Well, we got to meet with him and he walked us around the main ger to show us his art and the inspiration behind each peace, which was quite interesting, yet he encouraged us to take our own story from it. There were quite a few pieces that I quite liked, even a couple by some of his students which were clearly different but incredible as well. Tamir also spoke French, better than English in fact, so sometimes he struggled with relating some of his concepts to us non-French speakers.
There are about 5 or 6 gers onsite, and a couple of the smaller ones contain pieces by his students, which were also interesting and described to us by (I imagine) a student. So, overall, a good experience and I enjoyed hearing his take and he seemed very well informed by so many walks of life - able to relate religious and political interests to how to describe his pieces. I definitely would recommend a visit here, but he is
a bit quirky and I did get a little tired toward the end.
After this, we went back to camp and had another good dinner, and played a short game before going to bed. I set up my go-pro for another night lapse, but the sky was overcast and did not seem like it would clear up any time soon.
Monument to Mongolian Empires The next morning, I walked up to the monument on the hill above the camp and with views over the town on one side and the hills and river on the other side.The monument represents the ancient and medieval Mongolian empires. First is the Hunnu Empire (209BC-93AD), the Thurkic Empire (6th-8th centuries), and the big Mongolian Empire (12th-15th centuries). The monument is circular, with a conical stone mound in the middle. It is surrounded by three arched walls, each of which are dedicated to the above three empires. On the outside, the facade is brick and has a map made of recycled glass, with blue being the current boundaries of Mongolia, and yellow showing the reaches of the respective empires. There are also stone sculpted faces and animals depicting typical daily life of
Mongolia. I found it very well done and clear. Not to mention the great views.
Bactrian Camel Rides About 2 hours into our ride, we had a side trip where we were to ride the famous two-humped Bactrian camel. We had seen these off and on throughout the trip, especially the first day, and I was looking forward to seeing how they compared to other camels. Unfortunately, they only had three camels - well, really just two and a half as the small camel barely had any humps. So, instead of us all riding together, we split into two groups. I was content to wait for the second group and took pictures of them leaving, then pictures of L and D around the camp. D worked in education and she hung out with the kids for awhile, giving them some gifts she'd brought. Looking to the west, I noted storm clouds - I have always loved storms, which most of you probably know by now. I knew it would start raining soon, but it actually came up faster than expected! Full torrential downpour with strong winds. We all stayed in the warmth of the main ger, while waiting
for the first group to fight their way back; C said it had actually hailed a little at one point. I was surprised as the girly-girl of our group, Y, was all smiles and seemed to find it an adventure!
In the ger, the host family had initially greeted us with hot milk and some candies. I'm lactose intolerant, so I tried a bit of it, but knew I could not drink much more; and the curdling of the milk that I saw during the pours also turned my stomach. I did enjoy the little candies they had in a huge, seemingly bottomless tin bowl. After the first group returned, we the second group decided that we did not need to ride. Then they served us a very nice lunch with a meat stew and fried rice with beef, similar to a plov, and I really liked that.
Returning to Ulaanbaatar We then left the camp and continued the drive to UB. Thankfully, our driver had a nice nap at the camp and was well rested because at some points, the drive was a bit hairy. There were a couple of places where massive flooding from the
rains was causing the washes to flow across the highway. We had a large van / small bus type of vehicle, so were heavier, but there were a few crossings that had me a wee bit nervous, though I trusted H. At one point, we were able to follow a tanker truck, which was probably the most difficult and I could actually feel the water pushing us. The regular cars definitely could not have made that and we saw so many pulled on the side of the road, or parking at abandoned gas stations. No idea how long they would have had to wait.
Getting into UB was every bit as crazy with regards to traffic as E had told us. We were sitting in traffic for about an hour just two go maybe two miles, the weather not helping I'm sure. So, we just went straight to the restaurant for dinner. It was very nice, but reminded me a bit of Dubai - very visually appealing. Fortunately, the food was also very good and I think we were all pretty hungry at this point. The grilled mutton dish was so tender. We shared a bottle of wine. It
was just a good end to the night. Then we went back to the same hotel, and pretty much immediately passed out.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.095s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0409s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
What a great trip
The countryside, the monasteries and so much more. I would love to go to the calligraphy center even though there was more to it. Keep the blogs coming.