Kharkhorin II

The next morning, Emily and I decided to go on a little morning walk in freezing cold. It was a silent walk though the cold was really grounding and the entire ordeal was very meditative. We went to the opposite direction today instead, towards the mountains instead of the temple. After a long walk back, we had breakfast with Gana before he took us to the temple. The weather was fantastic today, with blue skies which made the cold temperature much more bearable as we explore the huge expanse of Erdene Zuu Temple.

It stretched as far as the eye could see with four walls surrounding it. The side temples were really intricate and featured various artworks of Buddhist deities and cosmology. The 3 main temples were also pretty unique as it featured Shakyamuni Buddha in 3 stages of his life, young, present and old. Something I've never seen before. We also went to the Kharkhorin Musem which had a nice virtual video of one of the aristocrat's tomb and also featured a recreation of the old capital. I was quite surprised to find out just how progressive Chinggis Khan was as they had allowed Islam and Christianity to co-exist inside the main city.

Leaving Kharkhorin behind, we had lunch at a village where there were some school kids who we tried talking with via Google Translate. Emily and I had chicken again while Gana had his usual sheep.Read more