CHIFENG, Inner Mongolia: My first visit to Inner Mongolia concluded Thursday when the Olympic torch finished its journey within the autonomous region - so far the closest province to Beijing since the relay started in March.

But despite its proximity to the capital, where I have been working over the past seven years, I had never before got around to visiting the region, home to China's largest grassland, which covers a total area of 880,000 sq km, or 21.7 percent of the country's land area.

I received mixed messages about these prairies before my visit. Some told me the region boasts the most beautiful grassland in China; others said the grassland is being swallowed by desertification.

I had thought I would miss the chance to see the grassland once again because of the tight torch relay coverage schedule. But late in the afternoon of our first day in the capital city Hohhot, a friend of my teammate drove up with his wife in their private car and insisted on taking us to the nearest grassland, which was about 150 km away.

"You can't say you have visited Inner Mongolia without having seen the grassland," our Mongolian host Bute, a former University of Inner Mongolia instructor, said.

It took us about two and a half hours to reach Simawangqi grassland, where Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei landed the spacecraft Shenzhou V on Oct 16, 2003. Our hostess suffered from carsickness during the trip but tried to ease our consciences by telling us it is a Mongolian tradition to receive guests as an entire family.

The journey proved to be worthwhile when I found myself standing in front of a vast range of green beneath a breathtaking sunset. The panorama was occupied with scatterings of cows, horses and local herdsmen's mushroom-like yurts.

The croaks of frogs filled my ears as I walked toward a small lake, and two cranes evacuated the scene upon detecting my approach.

Dusk began falling about half an hour after our arrival, so we piled into the car and rushed back to Hohhot. As we would arrive too late for supper, our Mongolian hosts produced for us a plethora of local snacks, including milk curd, cheese and finger mutton - "a must-eat treat for any visitor to a Mongolian home", they said.

I was impressed by their hospitality and even more impressed with their directness.

Bute unreservedly spoke of the desertification problem at my subtlest hinting.

"You are lucky to see the grassland so green and luxuriant this year," Bute said. "You would have been disappointed a few years ago, when the grassland was dry and yellow.

"But that's all history - or at least, we are trying to keep it in the realm of history.

"We Mongolians are 'the people on horseback'.

"No one loves the grassland more than we do, and we would never see sand cover it all."