Zoinzon, Bassenbat, Tuul and her son Angarag who is 7. We arrived within an hour at the monastery Mandshir, which is located in the Bogd Mountains. The monastery was destroyed by the communists and many of the monks were murdered. Many of the people of Mongolia did not know about the killings and monasteries being destroyed, it had been kept a secret for many years. The area is surrounded by steppes and on the hillsides are shrines containing paintings of gods on the hillside rocks, some as large as 3 feet high and 2 feet wide.
People leave offerings of money and prayer flags.
The view from the hillside is quite breathtaking, and we could see down for miles though the valley of trees. We rested in a ger that was a museum piece. It had some traditional clothes and hats we were able to try on, utensils made of copper, beautiful hand painted furniture with floral designs, and musical instruments. The staff is becoming more comfortable with us, they asked a lot of questions - more than usual. On the way home we stopped to shop and discovered we needed to work on communicating what we wanted more clearly.