Terelj - Erdene Zu Monastery - Kharkorin

I slept well last night until 03:00 when David got up to use the bathroom. Despite the cold outside (and persistent rain), I feel very hot – the winter pyjamas I brought are way too much. I finally get up at 05:45.

Breakfast

When we get to the restaurant, it is VERY busy, with a long line of Koreans (probably the three large buses we saw in the car park last night) all waiting at the buffet.

I wait a while hoping the queue will die down, but there seems to be a never-ending supply of Koreans, and the line never appears to get any shorter. Eventually, I have to give in and go up to the buffet table. The plates provided remind me very much of school dinners in the 1970s and don’t exactly improve my growing irritation this morning.

Instead of waiting for whatever foods are hiding behind the queue, I grab whatever is easily accessible from another counter, which is bread, chocolate spread, and coco pops. I top the latter with what I think is yogurt, but it turns out to be thick, rich cream.

Having joined the end of the queue, Daarima returns from the buffet table well after I have eaten mine, but her food selection looks decidedly more healthy and enjoyable than mine.

Milk Tea

Süütei Tsai, also known as Milk Tea, is a traditional Mongolian beverage made from water, fresh whole milk, tea, and salt. Some also add butter, such as here.

Despite not liking, and being mildly intolerant to cow’s milk, I try a small amount. All I can say is that it doesn’t taste quite as disgusting as it looks. Mantakh (our driver) loves it and has three or four cups.

We leave Terelj this morning and drive through the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar until we get to wide, open countryside. There are no trees (and hardly any cars), just fields and hills in different colours.

We make plenty of stops for photography, and at one stage a police car arrives and tells us off for stopping where we shouldn’t have done.

Mantakh using the 'facilities' after all those cups of milk tea

Look at those clouds!

Lunch

We stop at what is akin to a modern service station for lunch. The menu is all in Mongolian, albeit with nice pictures – which incidentally bear little resemblance to the actual dishes served from large vats at the counter.

Daari translates for us and makes suggestions, and stands in the queue to order while we find a table and sit down.

We both order Sweet and Spicy Chicken with rice. The chicken is tender with no bones or grizzle, but I would describe it more as sweet than spicy. The rice has no seasoning whatsoever, not even salt.

The service station is out of petrol, which seems to be quite common, as we visit several that are closed before we find one with fuel available.

The scenery changes to green fields inhabited by large flocks of sheep.

Traffic jam Mongolian style.

Kharkorin Museum

First, we are shown a fascinating video about a tomb they found in 2011, before being allocated an excellent guide to show us around the museum, including the temporary exhibit showcasing the aforementioned find.

Cremated Remains

A wooden coffin was found located along the northern edge of the central tomb's western wall. The cremated remains were located inside a silk bag, which in turn had been placed in a wooden case within the coffin.

Clay People

Around 90 clay figures of people were discovered from the right and left annexes. The faces of male and female clay people in the annex were inimitable, thus real people were represented. As for clothes, they are similar to those of nomads of that period. The discovery of clay animals such as sheep, pigs, dogs, and chickens shows that they were probably related to offering and sacrifice.

Right Annex’s wooden door of the tomb with golden lock and key.

Kharkorin

Model of how the city would have looked like at the time of Ghengis Khan. Despite his brutal regime, Genghis was tolerant and inclusive when it came to religions within his city, and the model shows a mosque, Buddhist Temple, and Christian Church.

Mosque

Church

Buddhist Temple

During the 13th century, Kharakhorum City was one of the largest cities in the world, including districts of royals, ministers, noblemen, military leaders, craftsmen, traders, and priests, as well as inns for foreign missionaries and visitors. The city was destroyed in 1388 by troops of the Ming Dynasty.

Clay vessel from the Hunnu period (1st cent AD)

Stone age tools

Deer Stone Monument

The deer stone monument is one of the most important kinds of monuments from the Bronze Age. On this long, oval-shaped cut stone, various figures are engraved. From the top: the sun and the moon, lines, exaggerated representations of deer, tools, and weapons such as a knife and a shield, believed to be that of a warrior. A belt with a zigzag pattern and a circle at the bottom. Deer stones normally stand in front of a grave, which may suggest that they were supposed to protect the dead. Deer was considered a sacred animal in ancient Mongolia.

Persian Inscriptions from Kharakhorum

This monument was erected as to the construction of a Sufi religious house (khanqah) in Kharakhorum permitted by the leaders of the city. It was to be attached to an Islamic mosque there. It was found inside Erdene Zuu Monastery.

It is written in Persian with Arabic script and praises God, the city, and the people who worked and graciously donated to this project. It lists their names and the total amount of donations collected.

However, some time after the Soyombo script was created in 1686 by Saint Lama Zanabazar, the symbol of the script, Soyambo, was inscribed on this monument. Zanabazar war born in this province and became the first Mongolian Jebtsun – damba Khutuhtu who was qualified as a reincarnated monk.

On the back of the monument, a Sanskrit mantra “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum” was inscribed in the later period in three languages: Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Mongolian.

Granite female statue from the 13th to the 14th century

Baked clay objects from Kharakhorum

Bronze Age petroglyphs (BCE 3000 – 700)

Bronze Age burial mounds (BCE 3000 - 700)

Items from the Jujan Period (4th - 6th century)
2. Tweezers
3. Earpick
4. Nail cleaner
5 Eyebrow tweezers

Fragments of a bow from the Jujan Period (4th - 6th century)

A clever hologram shows how the many pieces of this clay bowl would have looked like at the time.

Silver Tree

Outside the museum is a life-sized replica of a tree that is said to have adorned the square in front of Genghis Khan’s Palace in the 13th century. Serpents twisted around each branch with their mouths forming spouts through which different drinks flowed, to be served during ceremonies and to important visitors. You can read all about the tree here, and see illustrations of how it would have looked back then.

Erdene Zuu Monastery

Dating from 1586, with its walls topped by 108 stupas (108 is an auspicious number in Buddhism, and it is also the number of beads in a Buddhist rosary), and by 1872 it had 62 temples, 500 gers inside the compound and would have housed over 1000 lamas. Stones from the ruined city of Kharakhorum were used in the construction.

The monastery was damaged in the 1680s but was restored in the 18th and 19th centuries. For hundreds of years, Erdene Zuu Monastery was the most important religious shrine in Mongolia. It’s the oldest as well as the largest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia.

During the communist time, Erdene Zuu was destroyed (1939), along with hundreds of other monasteries throughout Mongolia. Ten thousand monks were killed.

In 1947 the temples became a museum, then after the fall of communism in Mongolia in 1990, the monastery was given to lamas and Erdene Zuu became a place of worship once again.

Monks inside the complex

Today there are three temples within the walls of the monastery (the only three not destroyed in the 1930s), each dedicated to one of the three stages of Buddha’s life: as a child, an adolescent, and an adult. The name Erdene Zuu means 100 treasures.

The stupa was constructed in 1799 and houses 155,000 religious books, 70 small stupas, 2500 pyramids, 100,000 Buddha figures, and numerous ritual items.

On the right in this picture is a tree-story Tibetan-style Lavrin Temple, which was built in 1875 and is a copy of the earlier version. This is a working temple where the monks partake in daily religious ceremonies.

Most of the wall paintings, tankas, and masks inside the buildings, date from the 18th century.

Ornate door

Secret of the Silk Road Ger Camp

This is another large, commericalised camp, with the gers laid out to a blocky pattern and a large main building to one side, housing the restaurant and shower blocks.

The roof of the main building on the left

Our ger

The geometric pattern of the gers, taken with my drone

The main building

The centre of the main building is used for tables and chairs to eat outside during the warmer months.

The camp with the city of Kharkorin and Erdene Zu Monastery in the distance

Our Room

While some of the gers are quite basic and traditional (including those used by Daari, our guide, and Mantakh, the driver), we do have some home comforts, such as a nice double bed.

On the right of the photo, you can see the ensuite bathroom, which has been sunken into the ground and is accessed via a couple of small steps.

Dinner

This evening’s meal is a buffet, and for the first time on this trip, we find salt and pepper on the table.

David tries out another local beer

Stars at Night

After dinner, we head out to take some photos of the stars. Away from the cities, the light pollution here in Mongolia is almost non-existent. Manakh knows of a track that will take us up into the hills away from the main road and the car headlights. The ‘problem’ with taking pictures of the Milky Way here in Mongolia, is the absence of trees to use as a foreground. Most of the landscapes we’ve seen so far have have been almost completely barren.

The landscape here reminds me of the famous Windows desktop picture.

I ask David and Daari to create some interest in the foreground.

It's goodnight from me, and thank you Undiscovered Destinations and their local team for arranging this exciting Mongolia trip.