On our weekend away with Amelia we left Terelj in snow but soon the sunshine melted it all away. We decided to drive "cross-country" to a place called "Mandshir Khiid". I had ADRA's fancy GPS, and we had a more traditional paper map. While I wrestled with the GPS (it is hard to find places when the spelling in the guide book, on the paper map and in the GPS is all different!) Amelia worked the map. She figured out the dirt road to take first, and I then confirmed her suggestion with the GPS. We then worked our way across country for about an hour or so and then found our target - Mandshir Khiid. This was once once of the biggest monasteries in Mongolia, but it was totally destroyed by Stalin. One temple has been restored as a museum, but the rest is all rubble. It was sunny when we arrived, but the wind was so cold we crowded into the car to eat our lunch!
Chris stayed in the car with Keira while Amelia, Carly, Alesia and myself went to see the temple. The photos in this post are all taken by Carly, as my fingers were so cold I couldn't be bothered getting my camera out! Mandshir Khiid is in a cute valley, with a little creek running through it, trees lining the creek (an anomaly here) and boulders stacked everywhere. It will be a great place to explore and have a picnic on a warm day.
There are lots of little buildings dotted among the trees. Alesia liked the look of this wooden ger-type structure.
There was even a teepee-type thing made of tree-bark.
Alesia and I sitting on a rock at the base of a climb to a series of rock paintings. When we get another warm weekend we will come back here and do some clambouring. I noticed a series of ger's with French windows in them, which could be a novel place to stay!
