Karakorum, Mongolia
The fortunate occurrence of the Chuseok holiday combining with a weekend provided an opportunity for me to travel abroad this past September. Considering the limited range one can travel in six days, along with a desire to seek a cooler locale at the end of Korea’s hot, humid summer, my inner travel compass pointed me to a less-visited destination – the open steppes of Mongolia.
My travel companion and I booked a three-day tour through our guest house in Ulaanbaatar. For a very reasonable sum, we were provided with a driver and guide, as well as all food and lodgings. Our ultimate destination was the site of the imperial-era capital of Karakorum. We set out on a chilly Saturday morning and, after exiting the city, quickly found highway travel to be slightly different in this still-developing country. The driver was often forced to reduce speed and swerve to avoid washed-out, crumbling sections of road, as well as flocks and herds of sheep, goats, horses and cattle. Several long stretches of highway were out-of-service, necessitating off-road detours parallel to the highway – no mean feat for a mid-sized sedan, but one handled in impressively adroit fashion by our driver.
The first night was spent with a family living the traditional nomad lifestyle, herding animals and dwelling in gers, sturdy but easily-transported felt tents. After furnishing us with a mutton dinner, including the ubiquitous milk tea that is a part of every meal, the family also provided the opportunity for a 90-minute horse and camel ride to the sand dunes on the outskirts of their campsite. The temperature hovered right-at-freezing – slightly unseasonable for early September, but not unheard of in Mongolia. Thanks to a generous fire in the stove, we spent the night in the ger comfortably.
We set out for the modern town of Karakorum in a morning marked by blue skies, offering both dramatic vistas of the steppe and the promise of warmer temperatures. Genghis Khan established Karakorum as a base in the mid-13th century, and his son Ögedei constructed an imperial capital on the site. Despite flourishing for nearly half a century, Karakorum fell into decline, and Ming soldiers finally destroyed it in 1388. The city’s ruins were used at the end of the 16th century to construct Erdene Zuu, the earliest surviving Buddhist monastery in Mongolia.
Erdene Zuu is striking to behold, both for its impressive size – housing between 60 to 100 temples and 300 gers at its peak – and the 108 white stupas spaced along the surrounding walls, which dramatically pop out against the backdrop of the seemingly endless, brilliant blue of the Mongolian sky. The afternoon following our visit to the monastery was capped off with another quintessentially Mongolian experience: back at our new ger camp, we indulged in a few bottles of airag, or fermented mare’s milk.
The final highlight offered by Karakorum was a short trek to the top of a hill overlooking the city. There stands a stone turtle, one of four, that serves as a last vestige of the ancient capital. Nearby the turtle was an ovoo, a type of shamanistic stone pile that one finds all over the country. Ovoos are often decorated with bright blue prayer scarves and other offerings. Local custom dictates one must circle three times around the ovoo and add another stone when one encounters it. Skulls of champion race horses, another element at the heart of Mongolian culture since ancient times, also adorned this particular ovoo. It was alongside these boulders that we watched the sun set behind the mountains that serve as a backdrop for Erdene Zuu, while a day-from-full bright moon rose in the sky behind us.
Our tour also included visits to both a pre-Mongolian Turkic archaeological site and Khustain National Park to view a small herd of taakhi, the unique wild horse recently reintroduced to Mongolia. We also enjoyed another full day in Ulaanbaatar, where we availed ourselves of all that the increasingly-modern capital offers, including a traditional music and dance performance. However, when we look back, that sunset atop the hill, surrounded by history, flanked by culture and encircled by expansive natural beauty, succinctly encapsulates all that Mongolia has to offer.