Kharkhorin The Old Captial Of Mongolia

We decided to travel up to the old captial city of Mongolia which is named "Kharkhorin". The Ancient capital of Mongol Empire established by Genghis Khan in 1220.

Kharkhorin is about a four hour road trip out of UB. The road there was nothing to write home about, in stages the road was fairly good but in others the pot holes were something that you had to look out for.

The scenery changed quite a lot, from rocky out crops to flat grassy plains and in one part there were even sand dunes.

Along the way we stopped off to take a look at a collection of stupas

Four hours in the car was getting a bit much for Paige so stopping for a break made Paige very happy.

A long the road side popped up, what you would call was the Mongolia Road Houses which we didn't stop at as there was no need for us to do.


 

Once we hit the turn off for Kharkhorn we didn't have long to travel.

We stayed at "Dream Land" Ger Camp. The ger we stayed in even had a heater and not a traditional heated fire which you usually find in the middle of the ger. We had planned to camp by the river but to our surprise there were no trees in the area along the river so we went to plan B and stayed in a ger camp instead.

In the township there wasn't a lot to see so exploring the town took all of half an hour. We visited Erdene Zuu Monastery
Erdene Zuu (translated: "hunderd treasures") was founded in 1586, as the first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia. At its most glorious days it housed more than 1000 monks. It was destroyed by the Manchu together with Kharkhorin, and only rebuilt early in the 19th century. The second wave of destruction came with the "cleanings" around 1930.

The monastery could resume in its role as a religious center again after democracy had finally been established in Mongolia. 
The area is surrounded by a big wall with 108 stupas. Three temples inside have survived socialism. Other then temples not much else is inside the walls.

Around town we found what looked like the town square.

We then ventured up to the look out.

From the look out you could see the ger camp we stayed in with all the trees.

We decided to have dinner down near the river where we built a small fire and toasted marshmallows. We even got a visit from a couple of local dogs who were very friendly. We nick named one "Rex".

It was really nice to get out of town even if it was for only one night. We met up with a couple of friends who had been staying in the town for a couple of days. I cant say I was overly impressed by Kharkhorin at all, it reminded me of the Ger district back in UB.