Kharkhorin and Kids

The road to Kharkorin.
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Just back from our trip to Terelj we packed our stuff and headed off on a five day trip west of Ulan Bataar to visit the old capital, Kharkhorin and the white lake.

We were once again in one of the Russian Mystery Machines. Along the way we passed lovely landscape, with marshes and sand dunes in very close proximity, which I'd never seen before. We also stopped at a canyon which was impressive too.

a musical instrument made out of a human thigh bone

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Our first night was to be spent in the old capital city, Kharkhorin. It's a dusty town, with not much there except a rather fine monastery. However our ger was nice, the lady there called a traditional Mongolian Throat singer to entertain us.  He played the horse-head fiddle and a few other instruments, including a wooden one which involved hitting it off various parts of his head and body. Rather bizarre. The throat singing was interesting, quite powerful and the horse head fiddle had a nice sound.

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The next day we explored the monastery, it dated from the 17th Century and had the Ganlin horn. This is a musical instrument made out of a human thigh bone. They had some lovely Buddist Tankas and other interesting (and quite fearsome) statues.  The monastery is surrounded by 108 stupas.

We headed off again to our next stop, at the white lake - Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur where we were to stay for two nights.  As we neared our destination the "road" was scattered with pumic from a volcanic eruption, about 52 million years ago. Our ger was beautiful, nestled beside the mountains. Once we stepped outside in the morning we could see the lake which was frozen over and moutains and valleys all around. It was very peaceful.  We headed off to look at the nearby volcano climbing up to the crater.  Down again we explored nearby caves and canyons created by the volcano and walked back across the lake to our ger.

Another view of the temple. Cathal liked it a lot
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Cathal then went horseriding, I was still recovering from the previous horsey outing so declined, but we went for a walk up the hills afterwards. When we woke up the next morning we were treated to a rare sight... a nomad family moving their ger and belongings using a yak train. There were about 6 yaks and cart,  horsemen herding the sheep and goats, a woman on horseback leading the train and a few dogs keeping it all under control. It was so cool. The only irritating thing is that we'd run out of memory on our camera (having left the empty card in UB) so we won't have pictures until I develop my normal films.

The main temple
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The next day we went to stay with our driver's Mother. This was hilarious as we took great pleasure in identifying him from the various pictures around. He'd spent time as a monk and as a Mongolian wrestler. They had loads of lambs and kid goats, so we helped with feeding time, matching the kids to the nanny goats.  One of his brothers then arrived down from the hill on horseback and handed Cathal a felt bag. Inside were two newborn goats and a lamb, then were popped in the enclosure without ceremony and we watched them as they struggled to their feet. It was all very sweet.

Traditional musician, playing the horsehead fiddle in our ger in Kharkorin.
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When we left their ger camp the Mother gave us the traditional Mongolian blessing which involves throwing water up to the spirits.  We passed an Ovoo, a Mongolian shaman's journey marker. Generally a pile of stones along roads or any high point, strewn with offerings and bright blue silk scarves. The driver was making an offering, going around it three times and had just finished when two guys on a motorbike arrived. The old monk on the back was his old teacher (he was 80) and the driver was chuffed to see him, much smiling. He gave him a gift and told us it was a good omen he'd met him when he'd been visiting the ovoo.

The main temple closer up.
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Later that day we also saw some deer stones, which are bronze age cairns, carved with deer and all manner of symbolic stuff.

Generally we had a lovely trip, the scenery is very beautiful.