For many travellers, their experience of Hunan is a pastiche of the tourist image of rural China - a view of endless muddy tracts or intensely farmed paddy fields rolling past the train window, green or gold depending on the season. But the bland countryside, or rather the lot of the peasants farming it, has greatly affected the country's recent history. Hunan's most famous peasant son, Mao Zedong , saw the crushing poverty inflicted on local farmers by landlords and a corrupt government, and was incensed by the brutality with which any protests against the system were suppressed. Though he is no longer accorded his former god-like status, monuments to Mao litter the landscape around the provincial capital Changsha , which, as somewhere to break an overlong train journey, is a convenient base for exploring the scenes of his youth. By contrast, the relaxed, history-laden town of Yueyang in northern Hunan, where the Yangzi meanders past Dongting Hu , China's second largest lake, offers more genteel attractions. Both Hunan and Hubei - literally "south of the lake" and "north of the lake" respectively - take their names from this vast expanse of water, which is intricately tied to the origins of dragon-boat racing . Farther afield, there's a pleasant group of mountain temples a day's journey south of Changsha at Heng Shan , and some inspiringly rugged landscapes to tramp through far to the west at Wulingyuan Scenic Reserve .