Mongolia: Lake Khovsgol, the reindeer herders and Karakorum

1. Day 1: Arrive in Ulaanbaatar

   Chinggis Khaan International Airport to your hotel in Ulaanbaatar

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Dinner
   • Stay in Ulaanbaatar
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Chinggis Khaan International Airport (UBN), in a valley about 50 km south of the city, where a driver meets you for the hour or so into Ulaanbaatar. The capital spreads along the Tuul River valley at about 1,350 m: Soviet-era blocks, glass towers, Buddhist temples, and districts of gers and wooden houses climbing the hills at its edges. Our hotel is central, a few minutes' walk from Sukhbaatar Square and the seated statue of Chinggis Khaan in front of Government Palace, so if you land early you can stretch your legs straight away. 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.

   Included

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

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

   Activity: Plan to land by about 4 pm to join the briefing; later arrivals are met and briefed the next morning.

   

2. Day 2: Ulaanbaatar: Gandan and the National Museum

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

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Ulaanbaatar
   Day 2 details

   A gentle first day in the city before the countryside. 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. 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. 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.

   Included

   • 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

   Free time: Afternoon free; dinner on your own

   Activity: Cover shoulders and knees at Gandan, and walk clockwise around the temples. Pack your soft bag tonight for the flight north.

   

3. Day 3: Fly to Murun, the deer stones and Lake Khovsgol

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

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Khovsgol
   Day 3 details

   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. 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.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: Stay by the vehicle at the deer stones; the site is level grass and can be seen from the track.

   More active option: Walk the lake shore north from camp before dinner.

   Free time: Evening free by the lake

   Activity: The drive figure covers Murun airport to the deer stones and back, then about 125 km on to the camp; the morning transfer to the Ulaanbaatar airport is about an hour more. Domestic flights allow less baggage, usually about 15 kg in the hold; leave the rest at the Ulaanbaatar hotel.

   

4. Day 4: A morning on the lake

   Lake Khovsgol by boat from the west shore

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Khovsgol
   Day 4 details

   No long drive for the next three days. 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. 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.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: Stay in the boat at the landing, and watch from camp instead of the hill walk.

   More active option: A longer forest walk of two to three hours along the shore with your guide in the afternoon.

   Free time: Afternoon free at the lake

   Activity: Life jackets are provided. If the wind is up, the boat moves to another morning of our stay at the lake.

5. Day 5: A horse day by the lake

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

   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Khovsgol
   Day 5 details

   Horses are how people have always moved around Khovsgol, and today you see the lake that way. 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. We are back at camp for lunch. The afternoon is free: rest, walk the shore, or sit with the camp staff over milk tea. In the evening, ask the horsemen about their animals and the herding year.

   Included

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

   Easier option: Ride for half an hour near camp, or walk with your guide to the clearing where the riders stop.

   More active option: Experienced riders can ask for a longer ride in the afternoon with the horsemen, included.

   Free time: Afternoon free at the lake

   Activity: Wear long trousers and closed shoes with a heel. Mongolian saddles are firm; there is a weight limit for the horses, which we confirm when you book.

   

6. Day 6: The reindeer herders

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

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Lake Khovsgol
   Day 6 details

   The Tsaatan, who call themselves Dukha, are a small people who herd reindeer in the taiga of the Sayan mountains west of the Darkhad valley, several days from here on horseback, and this trip does not go there. 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. The afternoon is free.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: Stay at camp in the morning; the visit involves a short walk on uneven ground.

   More active option: Walk back along the shore path from the herders' camp instead of driving, about two hours.

   Free time: Afternoon free at the lake

   Activity: Ask before taking photos of people, and do not feed the reindeer. Carvings made from antler are sold at the camp; buying from the family is the best way to support them.

   

7. Day 7: South to a hot-spring camp

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

   • Drive about 5.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Hot-spring camp near Jargalant
   Day 7 details

   The first of the trip's three long days, and we say so plainly: about 305 km and five and a half hours of driving. 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.

   Included

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

   Easier option: There is no shorter way on this day. Take a front seat if you get car sick, stay in the vehicle at any stop you like, and rest at camp on arrival.

   Free time: Evening free at the hot springs

   Activity: Bring a swimsuit and flip-flops. Bathrooms at this camp are in a shared block. The camp and the exact spring are confirmed with our ground partner before each season.

8. Day 8: Over the Khangai to Terkhiin Tsagaan

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

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Terkhiin Tsagaan
   Day 8 details

   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. 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.

   Included

   • 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

   Easier option: Stay at the foot of the volcano and walk a short way into the lava field instead of the climb.

   More active option: Walk the full circuit of the crater rim, about 30 minutes more.

   Free time: Evening free by the lake

   Activity: The path up Khorgo is steep stone steps; at this altitude, take it slowly.

9. Day 9: A day at the Great White Lake

   Terkhiin Tsagaan lake

   • Drive about 30 min
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Terkhiin Tsagaan
   Day 9 details

   A slow day in one place after two days on the move. 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. 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. 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.

   Included

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

   Optional experiences

   • Rowing boat hire from the camp, paid locally

   Easier option: Drive to the herding family instead of walking, and spend the morning at the camp.

   More active option: A longer walk of three to four hours along the shore to the river outlet with your guide.

   Free time: Afternoon free by the lake

   Activity: About 5 km on foot on the morning walk, on uneven lava ground; good shoes matter.

10. Day 10: Tsetserleg and on to Karakorum

    Terkhiin Tsagaan to Taikhar Chuluu and Tsetserleg, then Kharkhorin

    • Drive about 5 h
    • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
    • Stay in Kharkhorin
    Day 10 details

    The second long day: about 295 km and five hours of driving, mostly on paved road. 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.

    Included

    • 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

    Easier option: There is no shorter way on this day. Take a front seat if you get car sick, stay in the vehicle at any stop you like, and rest at camp on arrival.

    More active option: Climb the steps above the museum in Tsetserleg to the hillside temple for the view over the town, about 20 minutes.

    Free time: Evening free at camp

    

11. Day 11: Karakorum and Erdene Zuu

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

    • Drive about 30 min
    • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
    • Stay in Kharkhorin
    Day 11 details

    We are at Erdene Zuu when it opens, before the day visitors arrive from Ulaanbaatar. Founded in 1585, partly from the stones of Karakorum, it was the first great Buddhist monastery in Mongolia, and its long white wall is lined with stupas, 108 by tradition. Most of its temples were destroyed in the purges of the late 1930s; a few survived as a museum, and monks have been back since 1990. With a local guide we walk the temples and, if they are sitting, listen to the monks chant. Then the Karakorum Museum, where a scale model shows the capital that Chinggis Khaan chose and his son Ogedei walled in the 1230s, and the stone turtle that once marked its edge. 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.

    Included

    • 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

    Easier option: Rest at camp in the afternoon.

    More active option: Walk along the Orkhon River from camp with your guide in the afternoon, about two hours.

    Free time: Afternoon free

    Activity: Cover shoulders and knees in the temples, and walk clockwise around them.

12. Day 12: Back to Ulaanbaatar by the Mongol Els dunes

    Kharkhorin to Elsen Tasarkhai, then Ulaanbaatar

    • Drive about 5.5 h
    • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
    • Stay in Ulaanbaatar
    Day 12 details

    The third long day: about 365 km and five and a half hours on the paved road east to Ulaanbaatar. There is no flight from Kharkhorin and no stop between that would add more than it costs, so we leave at 8 am and make the first break about 90 km out of Kharkhorin, at Elsen Tasarkhai, where a strip of sand dunes, the Mongol Els, runs across the green steppe below Khogno Khan mountain. Walk out onto the sand for half an hour and have a coffee. 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. 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.

    Included

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

    Easier option: There is no shorter way on this day. Take a front seat if you get car sick, stay in the vehicle at any stop you like, and rest at the hotel on arrival.

    Free time: Late afternoon free in Ulaanbaatar

    Activity: The longest drive of the trip, all on paved road; we stop every hour or so.

13. Day 13: Depart from Ulaanbaatar

    Your hotel in Ulaanbaatar to Chinggis Khaan International Airport

    • Drive about 1 h
    • Breakfast
    Day 13 details

    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.

    Included

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

    Free time: Free until your airport transfer

    Activity: Any flight time works; the transfer is about an hour.

Wildlife and weather: June to September is the season. In early June the lake may still carry ice along the shore and the larches are only just green; July and August are the warmest months, with daytime temperatures in the high teens to mid-twenties at the lake, and also the wettest, mostly in short showers that can last an afternoon. September brings yellow larches, fewer visitors and cold nights, with frost possible at Khovsgol and Terkhiin Tsagaan. Afternoon wind can raise waves on Khovsgol, so the boat goes in the morning. Expect horses, yaks, sheep and goats everywhere, marmots on the steppe and birds of prey along the roads.

• Ulaanbaatar2 nights
• Lake Khovsgol4 nights
• Hot-spring camp near Jargalant1 night
• Terkhiin Tsagaan2 nights
• Kharkhorin2 nights
• Ulaanbaatar1 night