Mongolia: Tsetserleg

Tsetserleg was one of our favorite towns we visited. It's big enough to have several cafes, including a foreign cafe, a selection of motels, and a decent market. There is also a small monastery in town with a museum. The highlight for us was the hiking. Heading over the hills (where the cell phone tower is, for those going there) there is a nice little valley with a river. Along the river there are some nice trees to have a picnic under.






A part of the monastery. The rest, including the museum, is located behind me.














The valley with some nice picnic locations.














One of the interesting encounters on hikes is Mongolian cemeteries. They seem to usually be located on hills on the outskirts of town. They're quite small, with no real organization. Just some graves scattered around the hillside. A few have weathered gravestones, but most are just covered with concrete. Due to the rocky soil, the coffins aren't buried very deep. In same cases, people have cracked open the concrete cover and even the coffin. In a few of them we could see bones.