Karakorum

 Monday and Tuesday, July 15 and 16

 We drove across the steppe on paths—the roads gave out dozens of miles ago; these were basically worn tracks in the grassland.  Our destination was Karakorum, Mongolia’s ancient capital.  It was here that Genghis Khan established his headquarters in the early 13^th century. 

Along the way we came across herds of yak, goats, sheep, horses, and camels:

And, the first evidence of any kind of farming.  There are occasional vast fields of canola, grown for the seed oil, we were told, by large foreign farm corporations which are using up the groundwater. 

We spent the night in the Munkhtenger ger camp, and the next morning visited the very modern museum:

It has a small but very impressive collection of 13^th and 14^th century artifacts.  Here’s a clay horse:

We then went to the old 13^th century city, passing through a gate in the impressive walls:

Many buildings from the old city remain, as well as some monasteries.  There had been more than 200 monasteries in the city’s prime:

Our first stop was at the Lavrin Temple, dating from 1784:

 

We met with a monk who answered many of our questions about Mongolian Buddhism.  An acolyte then brought fermented mare’s milk:

We were tentative: 

But I drank it.  It was bitter, and a bit acrid, unlike anything I’ve had before: 

Our next stop in the old city was the Erdene Zuu monastery dating from the 16^th century: 

We had a talk about the representations of the Buddha pre-enlightenment (age 14) and post-enlightenment: 

We then left Karakorum heading for a ger camp at a natural hot springs, where the crowds made the small swimming pool of hot water less than serene.  After a night here, we’ll leave tomorrow for the Orkhon Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage site.