Mongolia: Lake Khovsgol, the reindeer herders and Karakorum

Arrive in Ulaanbaatar

Chinggis Khaan International Airport to your hotel in Ulaanbaatar

• Repas du soir
• Nuit : Ulaanbaatar
• Environ 1 h de route

Soir

In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a briefing: how the ger camps work, what to pack in a soft bag for the flight north, what to wear for the horse day, and which three days are long in the vehicle. Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner of Mongolian food, buuz dumplings, khuushuur and grilled meat, with vegetarian dishes on request.

Compris

• Pick-up at Chinggis Khaan International Airport (UBN)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner

Ulaanbaatar: Gandan and the National Museum

Ulaanbaatar: Gandan Monastery, the National Museum of Mongolia and an evening concert

• Petit-déjeuner et repas du midi
• Nuit : Ulaanbaatar
• Environ 30 min de route

Matin

We start at Gandan, the largest working monastery in Mongolia, in the morning while the monks are at prayers: turn the prayer wheels in the courtyard, listen to the chanting, and see the tall gilded statue of Migjid Janraisig in the main temple. Then the National Museum of Mongolia, a short drive away, where your guide walks you through the Bronze Age deer stones you will see in place on day 3, the clothes and jewellery of the country's peoples, including the Tsaatan reindeer herders, and the history of the empire whose capital you reach on day 10.

Après-midi

Lunch is at a restaurant near Sukhbaatar Square. The afternoon is free: rest after the flight, look for cashmere, or visit the Choijin Lama Temple Museum on your own.

Soir

In the early evening we go together to a concert of Mongolian music and dance, with khoomii throat singing, contortion and the horse-head fiddle. Dinner afterwards is on your own.

Compris

• Gandan Monastery at morning prayers, with your guide
• The National Museum of Mongolia, with your guide
• Lunch near Sukhbaatar Square
• An evening concert of Mongolian music, dance and throat singing

Fly to Murun, the deer stones and Lake Khovsgol

Ulaanbaatar to Murun by air, then Uushigiin Uver and the west shore of Lake Khovsgol

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Khovsgol
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

After breakfast we drive to the airport for the flight north-west to Murun, the capital of Khovsgol province, about an hour and a half in the air.

Soir

Flying saves the two days of driving, or the night train to Erdenet, that the other Khovsgol trips spend getting here. Our vehicles and drivers, sent up from Ulaanbaatar ahead of us, meet the plane. About 20 km west of town, at Uushigiin Uver in the Delger Moron valley, stand a group of carved deer stones, granite slabs about 3,000 years old covered in stylised flying deer, with burial mounds around them; with your guide you walk among them. Lunch is in Murun, then about 100 km north on a paved road to Khatgal at the southern tip of the lake and up the west shore to our ger camp, where we stay four nights. Khovsgol is a deep, clear lake about 136 km long, set in larch forest at about 1,645 m. The evening is free to walk the shore.

Compris

• Flight from Ulaanbaatar to Murun (MXV)
• The deer stones of Uushigiin Uver, with your guide
• Lunch in Murun
• Khovsgol Lake National Park entry
• Dinner at the ger camp

A morning on the lake

Lake Khovsgol by boat from the west shore

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Khovsgol
• Environ 30 min de route

Après-midi

The lake is usually calmest in the morning, and afternoon wind can raise real waves, so we go out on the water after breakfast. The boat trip runs for about two hours along the shore: the larch forest comes down to the water, the far side of the lake is a line of mountains, and on a clear day the water is clear enough to see the stones on the bottom near the shore. Where the park and the weather allow, we land on a small island or a quiet beach for tea. Lunch is back at camp. The afternoon is free, and this is the slow part of the trip on purpose: read on the shore, walk the forest paths behind camp, or put a toe in water that rarely warms much above 10 C.

Soir

Late in the day your guide leads an easy walk up the hill behind camp to a stone ovoo, the cairn where travellers leave an offering, for the evening light across the lake.

Compris

• Boat trip on Lake Khovsgol, about two hours
• Evening walk to an ovoo above the lake, with your guide
• All meals at the ger camp

A horse day by the lake

Lake Khovsgol, on horseback along the shore and into the larch forest

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Khovsgol

Matin

After breakfast local horsemen bring their stocky Mongolian horses to camp, fit each rider with a saddle and a helmet, and lead the group at a walk along the shore and then up through the larch forest to a viewpoint over the lake, about three hours in the saddle in all with a break at the top. No riding experience is needed: the horses are calm, the horsemen hold the lead rope for anyone who wants it, and nobody goes faster than a walk unless they ask and the horseman agrees. If you would rather not ride, walk the first part of the route with your guide and meet the riders at a clearing.

Après-midi

We are back at camp for lunch. The afternoon is free: rest, walk the shore, or sit with the camp staff over milk tea.

Soir

In the evening, ask the horsemen about their animals and the herding year.

Compris

• Guided horse ride of about three hours with local horsemen, helmets provided
• All meals at the ger camp

The reindeer herders

Lake Khovsgol: a Tsaatan family's summer camp on the west shore

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Khovsgol
• Environ 1 h de route

Matin

In summer some families bring part of their herd down to the west shore of the lake, and when a family our partner knows is camped there and is happy to receive us, we spend the morning with them. We drive a short way up the shore, sit in their ortz, the canvas tipi they live in, and hear through your guide how the reindeer give milk, carry loads and are ridden. The fee for the visit goes to the family. Reindeer suffer in the lake's summer warmth, and some lakeside camps are run mainly to sell souvenirs, so we only visit a family whose animals are well kept. If no such family is there, we tell you before you travel and visit a Darkhad herding family instead.

Après-midi

The afternoon is free.

Compris

• Morning visit to a Tsaatan reindeer-herding family when one is camped by the lake, with the fee paid to the family; otherwise a visit to a Darkhad herding family
• All meals at the ger camp

South to a hot-spring camp

Lake Khovsgol to Murun, then a hot-spring camp near Jargalant

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Hot-spring camp near Jargalant
• Environ 5.5 h de route

Soir

Leaving the lake by the way we came takes us back past Khatgal to Murun, about 125 km on paved road, and from there the only ger camp of our standard on the way south is at the hot springs near Jargalant, about 180 km further on rougher road; stopping earlier would mean a night with nothing to see and a longer day tomorrow. We leave at 8 after breakfast, stop for coffee and a stretch at Khatgal, and reach Murun for a sit-down lunch in town. South of Murun the land opens out into broad river valleys with herders' gers and big herds of yaks and horses; we stop every hour or so for photos and to stretch. We reach the camp in the late afternoon. The water comes out of the ground hot, and the camp has pools to soak in: the best cure for a day in the vehicle. Dinner is at camp, and the evening is free.

Compris

• Sit-down lunch in Murun
• The hot spring pools at the camp
• Dinner at the ger camp

Over the Khangai to Terkhiin Tsagaan

Hot-spring camp to Terkhiin Tsagaan lake and the Khorgo volcano

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Terkhiin Tsagaan
• Environ 3.5 h de route

Matin

After a last morning soak and breakfast, we leave at 9 on tracks south through the hills of the northern Khangai, about 100 to 120 km and three and a half hours with stops. If rain has made the track hard going, the drivers take the longer way round by the main road to Tariat instead, and we climb Khorgo tomorrow morning.

Après-midi

Lunch is a hot meal set up by our crew by a river on the way. We come down into the Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan National Park in the early afternoon. Terkhiin Tsagaan, the Great White Lake, about 16 km long, the lake at around 2,060 m, was formed when lava from the Khorgo volcano dammed a river, and black lava fields still run along its shore. We settle into our ger camp by the lake for two nights. In the late afternoon, when the day visitors have gone, we drive to the foot of the Khorgo cone and climb the stepped path to the rim, 20 to 30 minutes, to look down into the crater and out over the lava fields and the lake.

Compris

• Drive through the northern Khangai with stops for photos
• Hot lunch on the way
• Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan National Park entry
• Late-afternoon climb to the rim of the Khorgo volcano, with your guide
• Dinner at the ger camp

A day at the Great White Lake

Terkhiin Tsagaan lake

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Terkhiin Tsagaan
• Environ 30 min de route

Matin

After breakfast your guide leads a walk along the lake shore and out onto the lava fields, where larches grow out of the black rock, to a herding family who keep yaks by the lake. Sit in their ger over milk tea and fresh dairy, the curd and cream that families here make all summer, and see how the yaks are milked and the felt is made.

Après-midi

We are back at camp for lunch. The afternoon is free: rest in the ger, take a book to the shore, hire a rowing boat from the camp, or walk around the small island at the lake's edge if the water is low.

Soir

The light is long and soft in the evening, the best time for photos of the lake with the volcano behind. Dinner is at camp, and anyone who wants to can go out after dark: there are very few lights here, and on a clear night the sky is thick with stars.

Compris

• Guided walk along the lake shore and the lava fields
• Visit to a yak-herding family
• All meals at the ger camp

Activités en option

• Rowing boat hire from the camp, paid locally

Tsetserleg and on to Karakorum

Terkhiin Tsagaan to Taikhar Chuluu and Tsetserleg, then Kharkhorin

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Kharkhorin
• Environ 5 h de route

Soir

There is no closer good night stop between the lake and Karakorum, so we break the day in three. We leave at 8:30, pass the Chuluut river gorge, and stop at Taikhar Chuluu, a great granite rock rising alone from the steppe near Ikh Tamir, covered in inscriptions, with a legend of a hero who threw it there. Late morning we reach Tsetserleg, the capital of Arkhangai, a small town against a mountain with a temple above it. The provincial museum is in the old temple buildings of Zayain Gegeenii Sum, a monastery founded in the 17th century, and shows how herding families lived: saddles, felt, silver and a ger set up as it would be. Lunch is a sit-down meal in town. Then about two hours south-east, dropping into the Orkhon valley, to our ger camp near Kharkhorin, the town beside the old capital, by late afternoon. Dinner at camp.

Compris

• Taikhar Chuluu rock
• The Arkhangai museum in the Zayain Gegeenii Sum temples, Tsetserleg
• Sit-down lunch in Tsetserleg
• Dinner at the ger camp near Kharkhorin

Karakorum and Erdene Zuu

Kharkhorin: Erdene Zuu, the Karakorum Museum and the hill above the valley

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Kharkhorin
• Environ 30 min de route

Après-midi

Lunch is in town. The afternoon is free: rest at camp or walk by the Orkhon River. Late in the day we drive up to the hill above town, where a monument to the empires of Mongolia looks over the Orkhon valley, a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape since 2004.

Compris

• Erdene Zuu Monastery at opening, with a local guide
• The Karakorum Museum
• The stone turtle of Karakorum
• Sit-down lunch in Kharkhorin
• The empires monument on the hill above town, late in the day

Back to Ulaanbaatar by the Mongol Els dunes

Kharkhorin to Elsen Tasarkhai, then Ulaanbaatar

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Ulaanbaatar
• Environ 5.5 h de route

Après-midi

Then about two and a half hours more to a sit-down lunch at a roadside restaurant near Lun, where the road crosses the Tuul river, about two thirds of the way. The last stretch crosses open steppe, with a stop for photos. We reach Ulaanbaatar in the late afternoon, back at the hotel where you left your extra luggage, with time for a shower and a rest.

Soir

In the evening we sit down to a farewell dinner together, a last chance to swap photos and thank the drivers who have carried us across the country.

Compris

• A walk on the Elsen Tasarkhai dunes
• Sit-down lunch near Lun
• Farewell dinner in Ulaanbaatar

Depart from Ulaanbaatar

Your hotel in Ulaanbaatar to Chinggis Khaan International Airport

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 1 h de route

Matin

Breakfast at the hotel, then the trip ends. Chinggis Khaan International Airport is about 50 km south of the city, an hour's drive and more at rush hour, and we time your transfer to fit your flight: plan to leave the hotel about three hours before an international departure. With a later flight the morning is yours. Walk to the Choijin Lama Temple Museum, a group of early 20th century temples now hemmed in by office towers, or climb the steps of Zaisan Hill for a view over the whole city and the Tuul River below it. The State Department Store and the shops around Sukhbaatar Square are the last chance for cashmere, felt slippers and other things to take home. If you would like more of Mongolia, our Gobi, Karakorum and Terelj trip starts from the same city, and we can add hotel nights between the two. Your guide says goodbye at breakfast and checks that every transfer is booked.

Compris

• Drop-off at Chinggis Khaan International Airport (UBN)