Things to do
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Erdene Zuu Monastery
A wall of one hundred and eight stupas encloses the earliest Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, raised in 1586 from the stone of the ruined imperial capital next door. Three temples came through the destruction of the 1930s and hold statuary and thangka, and one corner is again an active place of worship. Wind across the open compound is constant.
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Karakorum
Genghis Khan's successors ran an empire from this bend in the Orkhon for about forty years, and almost nothing of it stands above ground. What marks the site now is a stone tortoise on the plain, an excavated footprint and the monastery wall built from its rubble. Imagination does much of the work here, which is why the museum repays a visit beforehand.
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Orkhon Valley
A shallow river valley of grassland and volcanic rock, listed by UNESCO for the succession of nomadic powers that made their centre here, from Turkic khaganates to the Mongol empire. Herding families still summer along it with sheep, yak and horses. Roads are gravel or bare track, a driver is needed, and the grass is green only from June to early September.
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Orkhon Waterfall
Meltwater and old lava cut a gorge west of the valley floor, where the river drops over a ledge some twenty metres high, reached on a rough scramble down from the rim. Ger camps sit within walking distance. The falls run strong after summer rain and thin to a trickle in a dry August, and the drive from Kharkhorin takes hours on broken track.
