A visit to Karakorum

The closest city to the Genghis Khan Polo Camp is Karakorum, locally known as Harhorin. As a result, we went there a fair amount of times. First, to visit and then every time we were desperate for an Internet connection. (Who knows, maybe the next place we go to will have proper Internet.)

Harhorin was the capital of the Mongol empire during the 13th Century but sadly there is very little left in terms of monuments. This is in part because Mongols lived in gers, which obviously doesn’t leave much trace but also because a lot of the religious monuments were destroyed during the communist era. 

At the entrance of Harhorin there are several huge maps showing the evolving size of the Mongol empire through time and the size of Mongolia today. In the photo above, the blue colour is the size of Mongolia today while in green was how big it was during the time of Kublai Khan. 

The main attraction in town is the huge Buddhist monastery. It is very beautiful and many other travellers we met said it was one of the cultural highlights of their trips. 

The Karakorum Museum is also absolutely worth going (admittedly surprisingly). 

can you see how arched this old man's legs are - from too much time on a horse!

the happy turtle outside the temple - representing longevity 

The Harhorin market is tiny but worth popping in to check it out. All the shops are inside containers that came from China. It was apparently cheaper for the Chinese to forsake these containers rather than to bring them back empty. 

a fair amount of horsey stuff on display 

a container shop