Always Sunny in Mongolia: Gandan Monastery

I got my tourist on this weekend, so I have a ton of photos to share. I didn't realize how many until I started uploading. So the entire day will likely be done in a few posts. With that, let's get started with the Gandan Monestary. The full name is Gandantegchinleng Khiid - but let's face it there is no way I'm ever going to be able to pronounce that.

Here are my touring buddies. Felicity, Pam and Blandine - representing the United Kingdom, Canada and France respectively. We decided that Easter Sunday was a good day to go and get our monastery on.

The monastery is big - this is an important picture for perspective. Actually, this is the largest monastery in Mongolia. I'm told there are approximately 400 monks that are currently practicing here. Also - size matters - you'll see what I mean when I get to a couple of the statues - this is about 6 stories tall. The guide book had it in meters - but let's face it there was no way I was going to do the actual conversion.

I should also confess that I know almost nothing of Buddhism - I have had every intention of reading more, but just haven't gotten that done. Please forgive my complete inability to properly label things - if you know - feel free to include in the comments because who knows when I'll get that done. Outside the main temple...

I thought this was just a pretty shot. There seems to be a lot of this sort of statue in front of things. I'm certain it's significant - just not entirely sure what it is. And - I should also point out that the sky really is that crazy blue.

Another temple. This one had people practicing inside - although one of the monks spent a lot of time on his cell phone. I just thought that was funny. Also - when you leave a temple you have to back away - you are never supposed to turn away from the altar. For the record that is easier said than done.

Here is one of the largest statues I've ever seen. Remember that temple that I mentioned was about 6 stories high? This is what's inside and it goes all the way to the top. There is an entire ger (yurt for the non-Mongolians) and everything from pans to gear for horses inside this statue. This picture does not do it justice - this thing is huge.

This is a smaller statue to the right of the altar. Again, you'll have to forgive my lack of knowledge on the religion but I started out thinking this guy looked like he might be sort of happy but with a closer look - a little scary off the bat.

This is to the left of the large statue - for reference - the small ones are about 1/4 of the large statue at the altar

People paying their respects.

On the front door of the temple.

A prayer wheel. One thing that I did learn was that everything moves clockwise - so people walk around the prayer wheel clockwise and send their prayers up into the heavens. (Or at least that was what I was told by our volunteer guide - pictured below).

This lovely fellow gave us a break on our admission to the monestary (oh - they don't actually charge admission, but we paid him a small fee for a brochure) - but he gave us a break because we are living in Mongolia. I think he may have had us pegged, because each of us bought several paintings from him out of his trunk. Fairly certain he is not a licensed vendor - but that was ok - I really liked his work.