karakorum | Shanae's Shenanigans

Before leaving Ulanbaatar we stopped off at the Gandan Khiid Monastery. It is quite an impressive group of buildings, in the style of Tibet Buddhism. This is most popular type of Buddhism in Mongolia, with over 50% of the population following this religion. The temple survived the communist period and was reopened to be used as a monastery again in 1944. There are over 600 monks in residence now, we got to hear some of them chanting. They all chant in tibetan so the locals can’t actually understand. There were lots of cylinder shaped objects around and inside the temples that people were spinning. You are only supposed to spin them clockwise. They have Tibetan letters on them and it is supposed to help your ancestors who have already passed away. Inside one of the temples was an incredibly big statue of Buddha, 26.5m talk. It hardly looks like it would fit from the outside.

Just outside UB they are building another statue of Buddha, that will be the biggest in the world, I believe around 74m, taller than the Statue of Liberty and Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. They have a model of its feet at the temple and they are indeed awfully large.

After a visit around the temple it was time to leave the urban area and head for the semi gobi. To try and cut down on congestion, there are some days of the week where only odd or even numbered cars are allowed to drive. Because of this, our car couldn’t drive in the centre that day and so we went with the Swinhoe’s until we were just outside the city where we met with your driver.

The road was actually of surprisingly good quality pretty much the whole way there. Once we got out of the city, it definitely seemed to be one of the only roads, if no the only road, and it was heading directly west. After a couple of hours we stopped in I suppose what you could call a small village for lunch. The menu was only in Mongolian (incidentally Mongolia uses the same Cyrillic alphabet as Russia, a present they were given during the communist rule. Most now can’t even read or write with the old Mongolian alphabet, quite a shame if you ask me) but we got a translation and ordered what on the menu was shepherds pie. It was more or less what it was with a bit of a Mongolian twist. Not bad at all.

It was another good couple of hours before we got to our home for the next two nights. On the way there really was quite a lot of nothing with a few gers here and there, generally with herds of animals nearby. These could be sheep/goats, horses or even camels. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many horses in my life. There are apparently 14 horses to every person in Mongolia and I can believe it. The herdsmen typically have several for riding. They eat it too. There may be a lot of nothing but it is very beautiful and very untouched. I hope it stays that way for a while.

We were staying with a nomadic family pretty much in the middle of nowhere. They had 3 ger tents. One was the kitchen and where the family lived, the other 2 we for guests like us. Us and the Swinhoes stayed in one ger and a couple of Aussie-American ladies stayed in the other (we had met them before by the lake).

There were 2 horses there to ride and when we told them we were interested in camel riding, 3 camels appeared too. It wasn’t long before Dad and Harry where on the horses and you could just hear ‘choo!’ which is what you say when you want them to go. It wasn’t hard to know whee they were, even from in the ger as it was said quite loud! Once the camels arrived Sophie and I got on and went for a ride with the son of the family who is definitely quite a character and made the whole thing even more enjoyable. We went up to the nearby sand dunes and I stupidly forgot my camera but at least that meant I could just enjoy the scenery. Once we were up on the dunes we really felt like we were in the middle of the dessert as all we could see was sand all around us with the mountains in the distance.

The boy (I wish I knew his name!) was really quite amusing. At the top he got off his horse, gave us the reins for the camels, said goodbye and walked off.. To pee..haha. And he told us to make the camels go we had to say ‘roar!’, to make us roar.. It was good fun.

The sunsets here are stunning. The sun sets behind a mountain range and the colours in huge sky are just incredible. All shades of red and orange that reflect in the water in front, absolutely amazing.

We had dumplings for dinner in the ger. The solar panel they have charges up a car battery during the day so that at night the light bulb in the ger can be powered, very useful indeed. It wasn’t cold enough for a fire to be built, blankets were enough. We had quite an early night because really, what else can you in the middle of the semi gobi once it’s pitch black?

The next day was pretty full. We drove around 2.5 hours further west, some of it down the tarmaced road and the rest along dirt tracks. It made for quite a bumpy ride indeed. And our driver was pretty fast too. We kept having to pull over and wait for the other car as we were miles ahead! We arrived to what would have been Karakurum several centuries previous and what is now Kharkhorin. We first visited a museum (we were still quite in middle of nowhere but this museum had ac and wifi… Random!) telling about Mongolian history and the significance of Karakorum.

After the museum we headed across to the site itself that would have been where the ancient city lay. There is quite a substantial amount of ruins but a lot is long gone. It was the capital of the Mongolian empire in the 13th century. It was a very diverse city with many people from many religions living in harmony. It was the first place to give out passports which were large metal objects, not quite as convenient as the paper ones we use today. Genghis Khan rallied his troops there in 1218 but it is said it only truely became a settlement in 1220. In his time it would only have been a ger town, only several years later was a temple built. It was a walled city with much of the wall still standing with lots of temples and other religious buildings from several religions. It was cool to get to walk around it and see some of the Buddhist temples.

We were so long looking around we ended up not having lunch until almost 4pm. I was starving! We stopped by a nearby river to eat which was very pleasant before taking the 2.5 hour bumpy ride home. Dad, Harry and I went for a camel ride while the sun was setting, very beautiful indeed. I remembered my camera this time and the guy went with us took over 50 photos. A bit snap happy but he did get some good ones 🙂

It was a nice quiet night again enjoying the scenery as the sun set with dinner in the ger. We got to spend a bit more time with the family. We even tried milking a cow. Not as easy as it looks…

The next day we had to say goodbye to the family. It was a thoroughly enjoyable stay. Whilst the toilet left a lot to be desired and there wasn’t any way of showering, I would definitely go back. The people are so kind and generous and the scenery is simply stunning. Harry was pretty set on buying a ger and getting some sheep and goats and trying it for a while.

After breakfast it was time to head on to our next stop, a tourist ger camp on the other side of Ulanbaatar. It was a good ways away, around 8 hours in the car I think. And it certainly was not all down tarmaced road. The first little bit was nice and smooth but the rest was a bumpy ride. How the drivers know their way is beyond me as there is definitely anything but signs on these ‘roads’.

We were running a bit late but the plan was to go to the big Gengis Khan statue before arriving at the tourist camp. It was almost dark when we got there but we managed to get to the top of it while the sun was still setting. It’s a bit random to be be honest, it’s a huge statue of Genghis Khan on his horse pretty much in the middle of nowhere with a load of tourist ger camps in the surroundings. It a here when legend has it that he found a golden whip. There is a museum at the ground floor with lots of ancient artefacts from all over Mongolia. It is the largest equestrian statue in the world with the horse standing 40m tall.

We arrived at the tourist ger camp when it was already dark, out our things in our ger and went straight for dinner. Food at the camp was really rather good. We had barbecued meat which was very tasty! There were several others there as well, several from the uk and it was fun to get to meet some new people and hear about their adventures.

We had a fire made in our ger oven and it made it nice and toasty! It was a beautifully decorated with a bed on either side, a dresser and a coffee table and a sink. The sink didn’t have a tap but it had a container above it that could be filled with water with a tap on it and under the sink was a bucket. Quite clever really.

The next day the weather was not fab. We got up for breakfast, which was again pretty yummy food and I got a shower! It’s a good feeling to be clean. We were hoping to ride horses but the weather was a bit too wet to enjoy it so we went for the relaxation option instead. We did laundry and had another fire made in the ger so our clothes would dry and did some blog writing and sewing. Meal times were good times to get to chat with people. Both lunch and dinner we stayed a while in the dining room just chatting away.

The next day it was time to go back to UB after breakfast. The first little part was a dirt track through fields but the rest was a nice road. The weather still wasn’t great but at least we were dry in the van. We arrived at the hotel and there were several other tourists checking in as well. It was pretty nice with several restaurants attached.

The weather was still not great but we went for a walk around to at least see a bit of the city. We tried to get into the natural history museum to see some fossils from the gobi desert but it was permanently closed (at least for now) as the building was unstable…

So we went straight for the shopping instead! I had read there was a souvenir section in the state department store and was a bit hesitant about it but it turned out to be great! It was on the top floor by the food court (they had a Cinnabon!) and was huge! They had anything and everything you could ever want from ger memorabilia to paintings to musical instruments to cashmere… so we of course came out with several bags.. Definitely a great place though if you are in Mongolia for souvenirs. Whatever you’re looking for you’ll find it here and at very reasonable prices too.

That evening we went to Tumen Akh cultural show. Fabulous! Just what the doctor ordered. No wonder it has such great reviews on trip advisor and only just across the street from our hotel. Here in UB when money is spent it is definitely on the inside of the buildings and not the outside. Both our hotel and theatre look like nothing from the outside but on inside they are both indeed very nice. We got to the theatre around half an hour before the show started and there were already several people there. We met a Mongolian tour guide who was first in line to buy tickets and she offered to buy ours for us as well so we gave her the money. A big coach load came in that somehow had their tickets beforehand but as soon as we were handed the tickets, true Russian style we squeezed in at the front of the queue for the door and got front row seats!

Now this theatre is a lot more basic than your average theatre at home. The stage is at the same level as the front row and the 4 rows of seats are more like 4 large carpeted stairs than seats. Definitely gives it more of an authentic feel. It was well decorated as well.

The show lasted about an hour and really was entertaining. There were several dancing acts with lots of different traditional outfits as well as instrumental pieces on Mongolian instruments. There was some normal singing and also some throat singing. It is probably one of the strangest things I have ever heard and definitely quite mesmerising. Check out this link if you haven’t heard it before. So overall a definite winner. Another must should you find yourself here.

We went back to the hotel for dinner and then it was another early night as it was a very early start. We got picked up at 6am (along with most of the rest of the hotel it seemed) to get to our 7:15 train to Beijing.

The huge Buddha statue