Getting thereFlights to Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, tend to be expensive. It is better to fly to Vienna and cross the border by car or bus if visiting western Slovakia. Austrian Airlines (0845 601 0948; ) is offering return fares for £130 from Heathrow and £184 return from Manchester. Bus travel and petrol are very cheap within Slovakia.There are few holiday companies specialising in Slovakia, try Tatratour (00 421 2 5292 7965) in Bratislava or visit for tips.Further informationFor more information about Slovakia contact the Czech and Slovak Tourist Centre (020-7794 3263; ).. A thought occurred to me as I waited for the governor of Tsetserleg to officially open Naadam, the province’s three-day festival of sport. If it hadn’t been for perhaps the most abrupt volte-face in military history, Ulan Bator and not Manchester might have been the venue for last summer’s Commonwealth Games. The year is 1241, and Mongolia’s indefatigable “Golden Horde” has swept across Asia and overrun Bohemia and Hungary Western Europe looks doomed.

Brutality and strategic brilliance have placed the Mongols on the cusp of assimilating us into the greatest commonwealth of nations history has ever known. But then, almost inexplicably, they turn around and return home to the steppes Back to their felt gers Back to their livestock. Soon afterwards, their empire disintegrates, and over the passage of time Outer Mongolia becomes an aphorism for obscurity.Sixty-nine years of stifling Soviet-style Communism, which ended in 1990, are partly to blame for the virtual disappearance of Mongolia from the world stage. So I was looking at Eriyn Gurvan Naadam – “the festival of three manly sports” – for signs that the warrior spirit that once made the Mongols so feared under Khanate rule might still exist in the blood of modern Mongolians. I hoped Naadam would capture the romance of the nation’s pyrrhic past, although the “three manly sports” – wrestling, archery, and horse-riding – are no longer part of impromptu nomadic gatherings held on the withering steppes, but organized events within the confines of concrete stadiums.That’s why I am waiting in a crumbling sports arena in the pleasant mountain town of Tsetserleg; amid the pine forests of Arkhangai aimag (state) in central Mongolia. Every aimag has its own naadam, and Tsetserleg’s is a suitably low-key affair.

But I was content to attend a more traditional naadam, away from the capital Ulan Bator’s higher-profile event – probably the biggest draw for summer tourists to Mongolia. There would be no finely tuned athletes competing here, and definitely no synchronised swimmers. Just nomads and shepherds.Eventually, the governor completes his panegyric to a near-empty stadium, and Naadam begins. Not a moment too soon, as I need a distraction to take my mind from the frosty winds sliding off the surrounding steppe, which threaten to remove the governor’s grey Homburg from his head.First into the arena are the wrestlers. Some muscular and lean, others clearly no-hopers, they skip on to the playing field performing a kind of affected trot and flapping their arms slowly.