The town of GONGXIAN , midway between Luoyang and Zhengzhou, on the rail line to Shanghai, is an unremarkable place, though it could be used as a base to explore Song Shan if you can't get a room in Dengfeng. If you do wind up here, there are some Song-dynasty tombs and a few Buddhist cave temples to visit outside the town.

Foreigners are supposed to stay at the Gongyishi Binguan (¥200-300), a dull building with a fancy entranceway, on the main street north and west of the train station, but you may get into a much cheaper Chinese hotel. Hotpot stalls set up every evening in the square outside the Bank of China, at the main crossroads in the centre of town. The few- taxis in town congregate outside the train station; hard bargaining is needed to charter one for an afternoon, and you'll get a huge audience while you do so.

The tombs , spread over a thirty-kilometre area southeast of the town, have the same layout as the Tang tombs near Xi'an, though the Song emperors had very different funerary practices from their predecessors. In particular, each emperor's tomb was built for him by his successor and had to be completed within seven months of the emperor's death. Not surprisingly, the results are considerably less grandiloquent than the tombs that earlier emperors had spent their own lifetimes preparing. There are seven tombs, each with a spirit way in varying states of repair that include figures of lions, sheep and elephants. To get to them you will have to charter a taxi from Gongxian, though tour buses on their way from Zhengzhou to Song Shan sometimes stop here briefly. Look out for the tombs if you're travelling between Luoyang and Zhengzhou by bus.

Eight kilometres north of Gongxian are a set of five Buddhist grottoes (daily 8am-6pm; ¥10) from the Northern Wei dynasty. The carving is cruder than at Longmen, the figures are sturdier and blockier, but there is a lot of variety, with musicians, dancers and imperial processions, even a couple of figures with rabbit and monkey heads, among the seated Buddhas. The caves have a central pillar around which worshippers perambulated. Few people get here so this is not a big tourist sight, though the man who looks after the place has a few books for sale. Behind the caves is a village, and beyond that the dramatic rugged landscape of stepped loess hills is a rewarding place to get lost for an afternoon.