Shanxi Province, China , with an average height of 1000m above sea level, is one huge mountain plateau. Strategically important, bounded to the north by the Great Wall and to the south by the Yellow River, it was for centuries a bastion territory against the northern tribes. Today its significance is economic - nearly a third of China's coal reserves are to be found in Shanxi - and around the two key towns, Datong and the capital Taiyuan , major development of the mining industry is under way.

Physically, Shanxi is dominated by the proximity of the Gobi desert, and wind and water have shifted sand, dust and silt right across the province. The land is farmed, as it has been for millennia, by slicing the hills into steps, creating a plain of ribbed hills that look like the realization of a cubist painting. The dwellings in this terrain often have mud walls, or are simply caves cut into vertical embankments, seemingly a part of the strange landscape. Great tracts of this land, though, are untillable, due to soil erosion caused by tree felling, and the uncertainty of rainfall, which has left much of the province fearsomely barren, an endless range of dusty hills cracked by fissures. Efforts are now being made to arrest erosion and the advance of the desert, including a huge tree-planting campaign. Sometimes you'll even see wandering dunes held in place by immense nets of woven straw.

Tourist workers in the province call Shanxi a "museum above the ground", a reference to the many unrestored but still intact ancient buildings that dot the region, some from dynasties almost unrepresented elsewhere in China, such as the Song and the Tang. In the same breath they call neighbouring Shaanxi a "museum under the ground", an unfair comment no doubt engendered by that province's greater popularity as a tourist destination. Shanxi's unpopularity, despite its rich crop of historical buildings, can be put down to the grimness of its cities, dominated by the coal industry, and the relative inaccessibility of most of the province's fine constructions. Visitors usually restrict themselves to the main attraction, the Yungang cave temples at Datong, seven hours from Beijing, which are easily taken in en route to Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, or Xi'an farther south. Anyone who has time to explore the province further, however, is richly rewarded at Wutai Shan , a holy mountain in the northeast on the border with Hebei. Formerly difficult to reach - the journey can now be done in four hours by private minibus from Taiyuan, the nearest city - Wutai Shan's combination of ancient temples and breathtaking scenery make it one of the best mountain sites in the country. Although Taiyuan itself has few historic sights to boast of, the city is commercially developing and is a good base from which to move around the region. Farther south, all within a bus ride of the towns spread along the rail line between Taiyuan and Xi'an, are obscure little places, well off the predictable China trails, full of memorable sights. Particularly fine are a couple of superb temples, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, such as the Shuanglin Si outside Taiyuan, with its amazing sculptures, and the striking murals of the Yongle Gong at Ruicheng. At Pingyao , again requiring some effort to reach, the whole town seems stuck in a time warp, its alleys lined with charming Qing-dynasty architecture. Once you venture far off the main arterial rail line, travel becomes hard work, as roads, and bus connections, are not good. Another worthwhile diversion, though, is to the banks of the Yellow River, which runs down the western margin of the province. It is here, at Hukou Falls , that the river presents its fiercest aspect, which so impressed the Chinese that they put a picture of the torrent on the back of their fifty-yuan notes.