By Christmas 1982, Chairman Mao had been dead six years and the remaining living leaders of the Chinese Communist Party had been rehabilitated and reinstated back into the political system. Schools had reopened after the devastating decade-long Cultural Revolution and foreign students from around the globe began trickling into universities throughout China.

It was at this time, after a two hour train ride north from Tianjin to Beijing, that our small group of three American students traveling from Nankai University to Inner Mongolia for the holiday, explored the various halls of the capital's largest Tibetan temple and then crashed in the lobby of The Beijing Hotel. The de facto 'living room' for the expatriate community in China, the Beijing Hotel was one of the very few meeting places approved by the central government for the handful of foreign business people and students living in the country at the time. After a few hours of relaxation and conversation we said goodbye to our African classmates from the Foreign Language Institute and boarded the night train to Datong. Situated in the arid northern province of Shanxi, the outskirts of this coal mining town are famous for the magnificent Yungang Buddhist Grottoes dating to the early 5th century. Founded under the Northern Wei Dynasty, these caves lay on the eastern most section of the fabled trade route known as the Silk Road and are now listed as UNESCO world treasures. Temperatures were freezing but we completed our visit and then boarded a crowded local bus back to the city's one hotel open to foreign visitors - a large Stalinist concrete block dubiously named Di Yi Fandian, 'The Number One Hotel'. After an overnight in shared accommodations in a night watchman's room we set out once again and upon arrival at the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot, booked a jeep, driver and guide to take us to our final destination, the Mongolian Grasslands.

There we lodged at a former Lama Temple for two nights in a Mongolian yurt - a rounded sheepskin structure held taught by an internal wooden frame, lined with felt carpets and decorated with colorful wooden trunks surrounding an open fire pit. A copper pot holding hot chinese tea hung from a steel chain in the middle of the room and after an evening arrival and greeting by our local Mongolian host, we retreated to the main lodge for dinner.

Within the dining hall we sat down with our guide and driver at a round wooden table and before us a simple meal of rice, lamb shank and local beer was laid. A blue and white rice bowl, small white plate, chopsticks and sharp Mongolian steel knife with intricately carved wooden handle were placed before us and we began to eat. Halfway through dinner the electricity went out and to our delight we found ourselves dining by candlelight and its soft warm glow for the remainder of the evening. The initial awkward silence eventually evolved into friendly animated conversation and by the end of the evening exhausted by our long journey we decided to retire.

Upon returning to our yurt we stepped outside the hall and immediately looked upwards, for as we ate that night a snowfall had passed placing a light dusting of white powder atop the delicate chinese roof tiles of the Lama Temple above us. From behind the clouds a crescent moon then appeared amongst the brightly lit stars and looking out beyond our yurt in the distance, we saw illuminated the eternally vast and expansive Mongolian Plain.