Amarbayasgalant monastery

I was able to visit this monastery in the summer of 2005 during a jeep tour to Khovsgol Lake. It is a rather small and out of the way monastic complex sitting by itself at the end of a beautiful valley, surrounded at the time by only a few families and their flock. I doubt much has changed. I can't attest to the sacredness and OUV of the site but the scenery was stunning and very peaceful. Being so simple and yet the second-most important monastery in the country really highlighted how undeveloped and small-scale everything in Mongolia is, especially in contrast to Russia and China. We were the only group there, saw a handful of monks doing their thing in the main temple quite quickly and spent the night with one of the local families before moving on the next morning. It was a long way from anywhere and wouldn't be worth a trip alone but it was easily the highlight on the route between Ulaan Baatar and Khovsgol.