One of China's four Buddhist mountains, the five flat peaks of Wutai Shan – the name means "Five-terrace Mountain" – rise around 3000m above sea level in the northeast corner of Shanxi Province, near the border with Hebei. An isolated spot, it rewards the long bus ride it takes to get here with fresh air, superb alpine scenery, some of the best temple architecture in China, decent accommodation and a peaceful, spiritual tone, though these days development has already had a noticeable impact; and once the highway and rail spur into the area are completed in the next two years, it's likely to become a bit of a tourist circus.

However, the mountain's inaccessibility has always given it a degree of protection, and many of the temples survived the Cultural Revolution intact. Most of the forty temples remaining today are in the monastic village of Taihuai, which sits in a depression surrounded by the five holy peaks. Highlights are the ninth-century revolving bookcase of the Tayuan Si and the two ancient temples, the Song-dynasty Foguan and the Tang-dynasty Nanchan. All the temples today are working, and shaven-headed monks in orange and brown robes conducting esoteric ceremonies or perambulating around the stupas are a common sight – as, increasingly, are tour buses and cadres lumbering in to watch them. Developers have taken heed of Jiang Zemin's call to "make Wutai famous" (an order since posted next to an image of the former president on a towering billboard at the entrance to Taihuai) by starting to build massive villas along the valley. So, too, has the local Party branch, which installed a Mao Zedong Memorial Hall – housing a ceramic bust of the sworn atheist – at the heart of the main temple, which most visitors tactfully seem to avoid.