Amarbayasgalant Monastery

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"Amarbayasgalant, one of the most well known and largest monasteries of Mongolia, is located in the beautiful Iven Gol River valley on the foot of Burenkhan mountain in Baruunburen som of Selenge province. "

Having "lost" a day of travel at Darkhan, we left the resort early this morning to visit the Amarbayasgalant Khiid (Monastery). From the vehicle park, we have to walk a short distance across the grass field to the monastery. The red walls of the monastery, surrounded by the greenery of the mountains and grass field, is simply beautiful.

Amarbayasgalant Khiid is one of the four great monasteries of Mongolia, and the most important one in the north. Built in 1737, predominantly Chinese style, it is also considered the most beautiful architecturally. Some of the buildings were destroyed during the religious purges of the 1930s. Restoration was completed recently with the help of UNESCO.

After spending a few hours at the monastery, we continued our journey towards Bulgan. Luck was definitely not with us, as the vehicle encountered some problem with the braking system. Again, we spent the whole afternoon at an auto workshop of a small town with barely any infrastructure.

By the time we reached Bulgan, it was almost 10pm. Fortunately, the sun in Mongolia never set until 11pm. We still spent a bit of time searching for the headless stone statue which I read from a book.

We were supposed to camp for the night but it was too late. So we spent the night in a cosy little hotel called "Bulgan House". We had our dinner at midnight!

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Photos

Market
I think it is in Erdenet where we had our lunch

Headless stone statue
Stone statues are thought to commemorate local chieftians, dignitaries and military leaders. Many are found to be headless. Nobody knows when they were decapitated.

Bulgan
We finally arrived in Bulgan at sunset.