Mongolia is an almost total mystery to the outside world, its very name being synonymous with remoteness. For hundreds of years, landlocked between the two Asian giants Russia and China, it seems to have been doomed to eternal obscurity, trapped in a hopeless physical environment of fleeting summers and interminable, bitter winters. And yet, seven hundred years ago the people of this benighted land suddenly burst out of their frontiers and for a century subjugated and terrorized virtually the entire Eurasian continent.

Visitors to the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, China will not necessarily find many signs of this today, and if you come here expecting to find something reminiscent of Genghis Khan you are likely to be disappointed. The modern-day heirs of the Mongol hordes are not only placid - quietly going about their business of shepherding, herding horses and entertaining tourists - but they are anyway vastly outnumbered by the Han Chinese even in their own autonomous region (by seventeen million to two million). In addition, this is, and always has been, a sensitive border area, and there are still restrictions on the movements of tourists here, despite the demise of the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, there are still traces of the "real" Mongolia out there, in terms of both landscape and people. Dotting the region are enormous areas of grassland , gently undulating plains of grass stretching to the horizon and still used by nomadic peoples as pastureland for their horses. Tourists are able to visit the grasslands and even stay with the Mongols in their yurts, though the only simple way to do this is by organized tour out of the regional capital Hohhot - an experience rather short on authenticity. If you don't find what you are looking for in the Hohhot area, however, don't forget that there is a whole vast swathe of Mongolia stretching up through northeastern China that remains virtually untouched by Western tourists. If you are sufficiently determined, it is possible to see something of the grasslands and their Mongol inhabitants on your own, especially in the areas around Xilinhot and Hailar . Finally, Inner Mongolia offers overland connections with China's two northern neighbours, the Republic of Mongolia (Outer Mongolia) and Russia, through the border towns of Erlianhot and Manzhouli respectively.