Kharkhorin & Erdene Zuu Monastery

Karakorum was founded around 1220 under Chinggis Khaan, and his son Ögedei built its walls and a permanent palace in 1235. It served as the capital of the Mongol Empire until 1260 and drew envoys, merchants and missionaries from across Eurasia; the Flemish friar William of Rubruck described its famous silver fountain-tree in Möngke Khan's palace. Ming forces razed the city in 1380.

Erdene Zuu was founded in 1585 by Abtai Sain Khan, and UNESCO describes it as the earliest surviving Mongol Buddhist monastery. Its wall was intended to carry 108 stupas, echoing a Buddhist rosary. Most of the monastery was destroyed in the purges of the late 1930s, but three temples and the outer wall survived; the temples became museums in 1947, and after 1990 the monastery was returned to the monks. In 2004 the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape, which includes Kharkhorum and Erdene Zuu, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Erdene Zuu is an active monastery again, and local people come to pray and receive blessings. Dress modestly, walk clockwise around temples and stupas, remove your hat inside, and ask before photographing monks or the interiors of temples. In the surrounding valley, herding families continue their seasonal way of life, and visits to their gers should follow the usual customs: accept tea with your right hand, step over the threshold and move clockwise inside.