Mongolia

My friend Julie travels to the most exotic places, and has been very generous over the years in sending me postcards from most of them.  This postcard she sent from Mongolia captures my vision of what Mongolia must look like:  small bands of nomadic camps in a vast expanse of barren land.

Turns out Mongolia is the second most sparsely populated independent country in the world, after Greenland, characterized by vast steppes (definition of "steppes":  region characterised by grassland plain without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes), mountains in the north and west, and the Gobi Desert in the South.

Just the name "Mongolia" conjurs up images of Genghis Khan, the silk road, and yurts.  It is a second tier "bucket list" place for me.