We were told the previous night that we would be starting an hour later than normal & to enjoy a sleep in. I took full advantage of this information and stayed up into the early hours of the morning reading.
Breakfast was at 9am & we left our camp shortly after 10am. The nomadic father of the camp came to see us off & surprised us with some English "thank you & have a safe trip" after we gifted him a block of chocolate. I particularly liked sitting with him & his family in their ger drinking hot milk tea, despite the sweltering heat of the desert. He has a warm welcoming smile & a twinkle in his eyes that portrays a life of happiness he lives & projects.
With only a small journey today, we arrived at our new campsite at approximately 1.30pm.
Again the landscape has changed dramatically. The different colors of dirt & sand combined with various rock's, stones, fauna & flora are never similar for more than a few kilometers. We are now camped near the very border of Southern Gobi & will leave this province & the Gobi desert tomorrow. We are camped next to one of the longest rivers in Mongolia, surrounded by brown sand, small hills & rocky mountains with only horses & cows for company.
We had some lunch in a rather grand, stone building with turrets before guarding ourselves against the wind & setting off to visit a Buddhist temple & temple ruins. Since arriving at camp, a fierce wind has made its presence felt, lifting fine sand high in the sky, obscuring our vision & also punishing any bare skin exposed.
Built in 1760, the temple facility, located along the green banks of the river; use to be the heart of Mongolian Buddhism belief, with over 1000 monks, 30 individual temples on the North & South river banks & 4 Buddhist universities.
During the 1930's communism spread through Mongolia. As part of the initial campaign for power, buddhist monks were arrested all over Mongolia. In 1939 the Monastery itself was completely destroyed with approximately 200 Monks killed, the surviving Monks were imprisoned, conscripted to the communist army or fled.
The river was then misdirected to sustain the mines that were controlled by the communist groups. This forced local communities to abandon their villages & it was feared the area would be forsaken & the ruins of the Monastery would be forgotten.
In 1990, the democratisation of Mongolia happened, another huge event in history.
It was at this time 3 Monks, who begun their Buddhist training as children, in Ongiin Khiid, 60 years prior, returned to the site of the ruins. It was their vision & legacy to see the grand monastery restored & to revitalise the buddhism beliefs & education in Mongolia.
Today a small river flows by the monastery ruins, past the tourist camps & the gers of the nomadic families. You can see the walls, the ruins from the many monastery halls & temples stretching over the hills. There is a new temple hall, built by the 3 monks who returned, a place of worship & a museum. There is also a stupor standing proud on the tallest hill, a memorial for the monks who lost their lives. I wish I could turn back time to glimpse what life would have looked like within the monastery as 1000 monks went about their daily rituals & teaching. Even as they are, the integrity of the ruins demands respect, appreciation & wonderment.
Undra, also explained that Mongolian Buddhist belief stems from Tibet & Buddhist monks must read & write prayers in Tibet. In the museum she also showed us the remains of human skulls, cut in half. She spoke of an old Buddhist ceremony that involved the selection of an 18 year old person, normally a girl, who would be sacrificed. Her skull would then be used in rituals to hold spring water. She said a lot of Buddhist rituals are very similar to sharman rituals & can be cruel.
This is very different to everything we learnt about buddhism rituals & belief in China. I'm keen to get back to society & the internet to research further into the buddhism history of both countries.
- Alli
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