Mongolian Tsenkheriin Agui

This huge cave about 100km southeast of Khovd City looks deceptively small from the parking

• Togluulagch 11 player

area but once you scramble up the loose rock path, you realise how big it is and how it must have afforded considerable shelter to the prehistoric humans who once lived here.

Unfortunately, this ancient art (c 13,000 BC) has inspired others and recent graffiti (c AD 2001) has seen much of it destroyed. In 2005 the area was incorporated into the Khar Us National Park and some of the paintings ‘restored’.

To explore the cave you will need a strong torch (flashlight) and whatever kind of footwear you feel copes well with the dusty bird shit that blankets parts of the cave floor.

The paintings are very difficult to spot. There seem to be far fewer than the tourism spiel promotes – and we couldn't find the famed whooly mammoth paintings. The easiest to find are some antelope and bird paintings in the first cavern to your left as you descend the path into the main cave. Most of them are found within a small conical recess here. Beside this, through a hole in the wall which you can squeeze through, are more animal figures.

Exiting the main cave, you can turn left and climb slightly higher to find the entrance to another, deeper cave, although this does not contain paintings.