GIMPIL DARJAALAN MONASTERY

Gimpil Darjaalan Monastery lies to the south of Sangiyn Dalai Nuur, but is best reached from Mandagolvi. Built in the ^18th century to celebrate the first visit of a Dalai Lama to Mongolia, it's a small monastery, but an exceptional monument in that it survived the purges of the 1930s, along with a dozen or so others, when there were over 750 monasteries in Mongolia before 1936. It was its conversion into a warehouse that ensured its preservation, making it an important testimony to the past.

Reopened in 1990, the temple was consecrated by a visit from the Dalai Lama in 1992. Today, it houses a small handful of monks, compared with 500 before the beginning of the ^20th century. In the center stands the main temple, a square building built on a rubble stone base and covered in gray tiles, unlike the majority of Mongolian temples rebuilt in the 1990s, which are tiled in green or red. Inside, you'll find a statue of Tsongkapa, founder of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, also known as the Yellow Cap school, and huge drums. In front of the facade, prayer wheels are cult objects inscribed with mantras that the faithful turn clockwise with their right hands to spread prayers and purify themselves. The few monks who live here are housed in another building behind a yurt.