Our short journey through Mongolia took us to the Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur (Great White Lake) situated in the Khangai Mountains, very close to the Khorgo Volcano (360° image below), the crater of which we trekked to, earlier during the day.
We camped by the lake side in a nomadic family's ger for the night and spent the next day scaling the nearby mountains. Below is a panaromic view of the lake and the mountains around it (although the image does not really do justice to the scale of the landscape).
There are multiple legends and folk-tales about the formation of the lake, the rocks, etc, but we shall get to these in a more detailed post later.
Here is where we learnt about the sacredness of the lake and the respect that the Mongolians have for nature. During one of the many conversations we had with our guide, Boogi, we were informed (and also noticed) that no one washes themeselves, their clothes, vechicles, etc at the lake, as this not only is disrespectful, but also dirties the lake. They always fill water in buckets and do all the washing away from the lake, letting the dirty water seep back into the earth and make its way back to the source after filtering through the ground. Which makes total sense, un-like the absolute apathy shown by our self-righteous countrymen who keep polluting all our rivers, not even sparing the “Holy Ganges”, oblivious to the fact that they are killing the very element of nature that gave birth to our civilization.
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