Amarbayasgalant Monastery

The entrance to the monastery.

The monks area inside the main building.

The ceremonial drum.

The front area.

The ceiling decorations and the main hall.

The Nepalese style stupa.

The stairs to climb to the golden buddha.

Walking to the stupa...

and around it in a clockwise fashion.

The view of the monastery from the stupa.

A rancher driving the last of his cows home for the night.

Saying goodbye and thanks to our drivers, three of whom are in the picture.

Monday, July 9th. Continued.

Amarbayasgalant shows great stylistic unity. The overriding style is Chinese, with some Mongol and Tibetan influence. Originally consisting of over 40 temples, the monastery was laid out in a symmetrical pattern, with the main buildings succeeding one another along a North-South axis, while the secondary buildings are laid out on parallel sides. Amarbayasgalant was one of the very few monasteries to have partly escaped destruction during the Stalinist purges of 1937 (when the Soviets tried to smash the Mongolian culture and the Buddhist religion), after which only the buildings of the central section remained. Many of the monks were executed by the country's Communist regime and the monastery's artifacts, including thangkas, statues, and manuscripts were looted, although some were hidden until more fortunate times. Today, only 28 temples remain and have been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

 Amarbayasgalant Monastery was huge and beautiful, and in a very remote location. It was located in the Iven Valley near the Selenge River and very far from any settlement. Buhuu took us on a tour of the complex and for a change we were allowed to take photos. Inside it felt old, historic and abandoned, although apparently forty monks do live there. After touring the inside of the monastery, we walked around to the north side and up 293 steps to a Buddha statue and then across to a large Nepalese style stupa and then down 355 steps and back to our vehicles.

From there we drove for another half hour to our last ger camp. This one was again in the middle of nowhere. Bryan, Tony and I moved into our new ger and at 7:00 we met up with everyone for dinner. As a group we had collected tips for the four drivers and since tomorrow is our last day with them we decided to present the tips to them tonight. I was asked to speak on the group’s behalf and it was kind of fun as Buhuu had to translate everything I said because of their level of English comprehension. After dinner Fred and Phyllis showed me their PDF slideshow of Southern Ethiopia (which is an area of Ethiopia I had been unable to visit and would very much like to), after which we all retired.