Discover Your Way

You reach the boardwalks above Hukou Waterfall, where the whole Yellow River squeezes into a short, churning fall set between two gorge walls.

Nearby Wave Valley lays bare smooth, wave-shaped sandstone cut by wind and water over long ages, an easy detour stop on the drive west.

You begin where the game begins looking - the Yungang Grottoes' cliff Buddhas and the open Cave 20 figure that shaped so much of its stone statuary.

The Hanging Temple on its wedged Hengshan beams reads straight out of the game's cliffside halls, and the walk-through is timed slow enough to actually photograph it.

Mount Wutai's sacred halls break the long north-south drive, the guide easing between the great Tang and Qing temples set along its five forested ridges.

Near Taiyuan, Jinci Temple pairs its Song Holy Mother Hall with a spring pool that never fails, its grounds among the oldest garden shrines left in China.

Over seven days you can revisit the 45 caves, working through the Northern Wei Buddhas and the later painted halls one at a time rather than a rushed single pass.

You look up at the Hanging Temple wedged over the Hengshan gorge, then cross the county for its older Danjing wall and a longer, quieter visit.

Rebuilt in 782, Nanchan Temple holds the oldest surviving timber Buddha hall in China - a small, plain space whose bracket sets still read clearly as Tang.

Foguang Temple keeps a Tang Buddha hall with original murals and clay figures, set on terraced hills above the valley that once carried pilgrims to it.