We then bundled back into the minibuses and drove up to a vantage point overlooking the town.
You can clearly see how vast the monastery complex is.
I love the wide variety of colours the roofs are.
Up on top was another Ovoo
Nearby was a collection of skulls. Mongolians place animal skulls - especially horse ones - on high places, cairns, or ancient mounds (khirigsuurs) as a blend of spiritual respect, shamanic tradition and honour for livestock. The horse holds a sacred status in nomadic culture, and leaving its skull on a hill or sacred site acts as a ritual offering or a way to honour the animal after death.
This one obviously didn’t belong to a horse though.
Talking of shamanism, one day on the bus Oogii told the group the story of his wife. I was sitting in the front so only caught snatches of it but basically she'd had a serious operation and her wound had failed to heal and she was close to death. Having run out of modern medicines to treat the infection, Oogii turned to a shaman and, although she wasn't cured overnight and indeed is still having treatment, she survived against enormous odds and he can only put it down to faith.
Driving back through town what struck me about Karakorum and all towns actually was people like to built quite tall walls and/or fences around their properties. Every Mongolian is entitled to a 700 square meter plot of land and they can claim any land that's within a specific distance of an existing settlement (ie. not in the middle of the countryside) so you often just see a piece of land fenced off for no apparent reason. Some families combine up their plots and will house several generations.
Back at the camp and I wonder if this is the ger which will be used for our "build a ger demonstration" later today.
We were anxious to get to our ger which I'm pleased to say is one of the new ones and quickly headed off as Pudu said the key would be in the door. It wasn't and as we turned round to walk back to reception we saw him running over to us as fast as his very short legs would carry him, waving the key above his head. He is such a sweet young chap and so anxious to please - I suppose he was concerned that we didn't have any more issues after the socks and he checked the place himself. We didn't and the new ger is lovely inside.
No fire in the middle, so hopefully no leaks in the roof.
The bathroom is a palace compared with the last one, but just look at the various electrical wires - we have several opportunities to electrocute ourselves whilst showering.
They'd also left us a bottle of wine by way of apology.
Seems a funny place to dry the towels.
We've found numerous things named after us around the world; Jenny an alcohol-free cocktail, Ian on a packet of condoms and now we have Ian the convection heater.
Mid afternoon we headed out again to visit the Erdemseun Khuree calligraphy centre which was founded in 2018 under the guidance of the renowned
Mongolian calligrapher Tamir Samandbadraa Purev. These gers look like they're camouflaged and trying to not be seen.
His Polish wife, Agata, showed us around and explained that the traditional Mongolian script which was established by Chinggis Khan was illegal when the country was aligned to the USSR and it's only in the last 10 years or so it has come back into use and is a compulsory subject in schools.
This is Tserendulam Ulziikhutag (also known as Tseegii) who was apprenticed here and now teaches the art to Mongolians and tourists alike. I looked her up and interestingly her father is a shaman and also a long-song singer - where each syllable of a text is prolonged and heavily decorated with falsetto and deep resonant tones. A short text of ten words can stretch into a multi-minute performance, while complete traditional epics can last hours - fortunately for us he wasn't around!
We all sat down with magic paper and water and initially the brush strokes show like black ink but in 10 mins or so fade completely so the paper can be reused many times. Tseegii went around the table showing each of us how to write our names - this says Ian, I think.
Before we left we were all presented with scrolls bearing our names which had been prepared ready for us - nice thought!
Back at the ger camp, around 17:00 we wandered over to one of the older rows of gers for our "How to Assemble a Ger Demonstration" but unfortunately before the staff could do that they had to disassemble it which took well over an hour. Although the nomad's gers are constructed exactly the same way and designed to be moved twice a year, somehow I don't think there are as many nails and staples in theirs. Unfortunately most of our group got bored after a while and wandered off and it was just left with me, Ian and Pudu to offer encouragement. If I'm honest the only reason we stayed and helped was I didn't want the manageress to think there was any bad feeling over the socks - this is her poking out of the top with the screwdriver and to do that she's balanced on a chair which in turn is balanced on a table.
The centre of the roof top is made of plastic, whether for the specific purpose of letting light in or not, I don't know but it most certainly does and being almost the longest day it get light very, very early and so we wake very, very early!
We helped where and when we could but otherwise watched and made sympathetic and supportive noises.
I'm glad I won't be staying in No.8 as I'm not sure it's going to be watertight; there were quite a few corners cut in the rebuild.
Well done everyone but I've said to both Oogii and VJV that if they're going to expect the staff to do this again, which I don't recommend, at least have a half size one that is already disassembled. The poor souls then had to go off and do their normal jobs - like cooking our dinner!
For dinner Oogii and Pudu had arranged a special meal for us - horse meat and vegetables cooked on hot stones and Pudu being Pudu had to pick one up to prove it was hot!
