After finishing up in the Khogno Khan Uul area, I continued on to Kharkhorin. I made a quick detour to visit the Shankh Monastery, first, though. This is one of two monasteries in this area that were spared the Stalinist purges. It was founded by Mongolias first Buddhist leader, Zanabazar in 1648.

There’s really not much going on inside the temples. They appear to be decorating or redecorating, but it was nice to walk into a dusty old wooden monastery for a change. The outside appearance of the temples definitely looked their age too, in a good way. There was even grass growing on the roofs.

I finally reached Gaya’s Guesthouse in Kharkhorin, my residence for the next two nights. Gaya and her husband are super nice and speak English. Don’t underestimate being able to communicate and carry on an actual conversation. There’s also some other nice tourists here to chat with for a change. A German dude, a Japanese dude, and a Korean dude. Awesome!

Kharkhorin may be the biggest tourist draw in Mongolia outside of Ulaanbaatar. Today it’s just kind of an ordinary communist built city, but if you lived here in the 13th century you would find yourself in the capitol of Mongolia, founded by Chinggis Khan himself. At that time it was cosmopolitan, multicultural, multireligious, and the epicenter of trade for three continents.

Unfortunately, there’s almost nothing left of what was once a very important city, but the artifacts in the really well presented museum give some idea. Artifacts from all over Asia, Europe, and Africa were found. Interestingly, the whole giant area from around Dashinchilen up north down into the Orkhon Valley south, where I’m going next, is a Unesco listed site.

Right behind the museum is the second monastery that survived the purges Erdene Zuu Khiid, built in 1586 without a single nail! Wow! It used to be a much bigger place. Some of the temples were destroyed, but not all. The Soviets decided to turn it into a museum of religion and so it was spared destruction. Today it sits inside a huge walled complex.

The main collection of temples, seen above, is now a sort of museum displaying some of the paintings and statues that survived, thanks to the many families and individuals who hid them all those years from the communists at great risk to themselves.

At the far end of the complex is this Tibetan style temple, which today serves as the main working temple for the resident monks.

As I said, there’s not much left today of the ancient city. It only lasted as the capitol for about 40 years, until Kublai Khan, Chinggis Khans grandson, moved the capitol to what is now Beijing. A point of contention to this day. What is left are two of the four turtle stones that once marked the four corners of the city. One is behind Erdene Zuu Khiid. Right next to the turtle is the site that German archaeologists confirmed was the site of The Palace of Worldly Peace, the Khans palace, which was built in 1235 and occupied 2500 sq. meters.

From the monastery I walked nearly three miles across town and up this big hill to the Kings Monument. It’s a three walled monument dedicating one wall each to the Hunnu Empire, the Turkic Empire, and the Mongol Empire. This was the only point in the day that I was actually happy about the cold weather. I got some pretty great views of Kharkhorin from the monument as well, as seen in the pic further up the post. Although it was extremely windy up there.

The horses at the top seemed initially annoyed with my arrival, but they quickly calmed down once they realized I wasn’t there to bother them.

From the King’s Monument I walked another three or so miles back to the other end of town and way up another hill to visit the other remaining Turtle Stone. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I walked a ridiculous amount today.

And finishing up my day in Kharkhorin, just down the hill from the turtle is the Penis Stone. Haha! This phallic looking rock was placed here in this canyon resembling a certain part of the female anatomy as a reminder to young monks to stay celebate and not chase after the local girls. Now, I’m not a 17th century Mongolian Buddhist monk, but this all reads to me like more of an instruction manual rather than a warning, but what do I know?

Orkhon Valley

Driving southwest from Kharkhorin takes me along the Orkhon River, the longest river in Mongolia, through the Orkhon Valley in the Khangai Mountains. The Orkhon River is huge and this valley is just beautiful! I think I also may have found the very worst roads in all of Mongolia. And that’s really saying something! To start, along the way I found another really spectacular deer stone.

There are an awful lot of vultures in this valley too. I managed to get a few pictures, but it wasn’t easy. The one above was just really far off and the one below took off just as I stopped. I got a good shot of him flying away, though.

After a lot of very slow, very rough driving, and a scary Orkhon River crossing, I managed to find my way to Tovkhon Khiid (N 47.012968, E 102.255889). They definitely didn’t make it easy!

I parked my trusty LandCruiser at the bottom of Shiveet Ulaan Mountain and then hiked my way up the two miles of beautiful pine forest to the monastery which sits on a rocky outcrop way at the top.

Tovkhon means “place of refuge” and was founded and built by Mongolias own first religious leader and artist, Zanabazar, in 1653. This was apparently his favorite place and many of his artistic works found all over the country were created right here.

Unfortunately, I didn’t venture inside the main temple. There were about a dozen or so monks inside all chanting and singing… and staring at me. Haha! I did climb up to the ovoo at the top and enjoyed the 360° views. Shiveet Ulaan and the surrounding area are covered in beautiful pines with the smell of pine everywhere. All the horrible roads aside, it turned out to be a pretty good day.

I descended Shiveet Ulaan and backtracked to the river where I made the scary river crossing again. It was actually scarier the second time. I made one last quick stop to the Uurtiin Tokhoi Cliffs (N 46.890231, E 102.410396). I hiked and climbed as far as I could in both directions. What an amazing spot!

Finally, it was getting dark so I found a quiet spot further up river and set up Camp 10 (N 46.892921, E 102.393932). Also, the frigid cold snap that passed through the last two days is thankfully gone. The warmish temps and clear skies are back on the menu. Yay!

Camp 10 worked out really well. I woke up early, had some oatmeal, and I was off. Just a super short drive south of camp is another cool section of the Uurtiin Tokhoi Cliffs. On my map it’s labeled as “Corpse Bight”. I don’t know what that means exactly, but it’s a pretty spot just the same.

I continued south on the horrible nasty “roads” until I finally reached the main attraction in Orkhon Valley, Orkhon Waterfall. Mongolia is not known for its waterfalls, but holy crap did they get a good one!

In my research I read about a trail about 300m downstream that descends down into the gorge, so I set off to find it. The only indication that it was there was a no fishing sign… at the top of the cliff. Why would they put a no fishing sign there? Sure enough, down I went and hiked through this incredible gorge to the base of Orkhon Waterfall. Awesome!

Before climbing back up I took off my shoes for a little dip and just enjoyed the hell out of the whole experience.

I also read about a smaller waterfall a couple of miles upstream, so of course I set off to try and find that as well. I found what I thought might be the smaller waterfall, it was actually more of a rapid, but due to a lot of GPS functionality issues I couldn’t be sure. Did I go too far? Not far enough? Oh well, it was a really pretty and long walk through the endless steppe. Usually I’m driving, so it was a nice change. I even ran into a guy on a motorcycle herding his goats on the way back.

It was getting a little late in the afternoon and it’s hard to cover much ground when you can only drive 2-3mph, so after a late lunch I started heading back. The timing worked out perfect so that I could just camp in the same spot as the night before, so camp 10 became camp 11 also.

After having completed my circuit of Orkhon Valley I can now officially confirm that this valley, as stunningly beautiful as it is, definitely has the worst roads in Mongolia. I even took a little different route back thinking maybe… but NO! All the roads here suck! I’m glad I came here, overall it was worth the effort, but I’m also glad to be getting out. I cannot stress enough how jacked up these roads are! Now I’m off to the next stop and I’ll catch up with all of you in a few days…