Around 330km from Chengdu and a similar distance to Xi'an, GUANGYUAN is an oddly shaped, determinedly ugly town on the Jialing River , largely ignored as the birthplace of Wu Zetian , China's only empress. Carved out of the riverside cliffs 1.5km south of the train station, Huangze Temple (¥2) is dedicted to her; overall in poor repair, there are numerous murals and rock sculptures of Buddhist saints set into niches here, some of them 4m high and a few in good condition. Completed between 557 and 684 AD in a static, heavily monumental style, these actually predate Wu Zetian, but her time as a Buddhist nun and later sponsorship of the Luoyang carvings make the temple's dedication appropriate. The empress herself features in just two sculptures, one worn beyond recognition outside, the other a very unflattering, dumpy copy in its own room; look, too, for the carved phoenix tablet by the temple entrance - a symbol of female power - instead of the usual dragon. For more of the same, catch local transport 4km north of the train station to Thousand Buddha Cliff , where more than 600m of rockface, in places 40m high, has been decorated with Buddha figurines dating back to the Sui dynasty.

 

Guangyuan's bus and train stations are 100m apart on the west side of the river; cross over the bridge into town and it's ten minutes to Shumen Bei Lu , which runs south around the base of Fenghuang Shan Park . The park's summit is topped by a ludicrous concrete-and-tile tower, looking more like a ski-lift than a pagoda, but it's an excellent landmark; you're facing south with this on your left. Not far along Shumen Bei Lu is the Guangyuan Binguan (tel 0839/3224114; ¥75-100), which, if they will take you, is immeasureably better than the dilapidated cells available two busy market streets over towards the river at Lizhou Binguan (tel 0839/3222977; ¥100-150), Guangyuan's only official foreigner hotel . For meals , there are plenty of hotpot stalls and restaurants along Shumen Bei Lu and the backstreets; if you have any trouble getting around, catch a cycle-rickshaw. Moving on , trains are your best bet for direct transport to Chengdu or Xi'an; for Jiuzhai Gou , there's just one bus a day for the 360-kilometre run to Nanping , from where there are daily buses onwards to Songpan and Chengdu via Jiuzhai Gou.