On Saturday, our train took us to Mongolia. On Sunday morning, we arrived in their capital, Ulaanbaatar. After a delicious breakfast at a café, we headed to the Gandan Monastery. This is a Buddhist monastery with sacred temples.
We were allowed to attend the prayer chanting in one of the temples, which takes place from 9 am to 12 pm every day.
In the monastery, there is also a 25-meter-tall gold statue of the goddess Megjid Janraising. Right after that, we went to the yurt camp where we were going to spend the night.The journey took over 2 hours and took us to a huge, beautiful national park where we could see camels, vultures, yaks, and of course many other domestic animals such as horses, cows, and sheep. We also passed by a rock that looks like a turtle. Finally, we arrived at the camp. After lunch, we decided to go for a hike. The view was amazing! During the night, it became quite unpleasant. It rained almost the whole night and unfortunately, it also rained into the yurt. We also had to walk a bit to get to the toilet, of course on unpaved paths. That was adventurous.Today, we were picked up and taken back to the city. Here we could explore the area and eat a little before we could finally enjoy the comforts of a hotel. Oh, by the way: today we met the Germans from the Trans-Siberian Railway again in a supermarket. They were traveling in the compartment next to ours from Omsk to Irkutsk. They recognized us and we had a little chat. They are from Düsseldorf and will fly back home tomorrow. You always meet twice in life :)
