Visitors to the provincial capital of Zhengzhou must explore the multistorey Henan Museum. But then, take my advice and make a beeline to the Shaolin Temple, near the town of Dengfeng. This temple, home of Chan or Zen Buddhism and of kung fu, comes as a surprise, with its combination of serenity and dynamic action.

Traditionally, the monks of Shaolin Monastery are said to have mastered such feats as crushing huge stones with their elbows, running up walls three metres high, kicking down big trees and sending an attacking tiger flying with a single palm blow.

Clearly, you won‘t master such feats in just one day ­ hey, it could take a week or so! But the sheer ebullience of the monastery‘s surrounds, where children practise kung fu movements in big group sessions after school, gives the place an amazingly vibrant energy. The same can be said about the nearby town of Dengfeng itself, home to over 60 accredited kung fu training schools.

Both the monks and nuns of the Shaolin Temple come together at night in the riveting Zen Shaolin Music Ceremony sound­and­light spectacle. The performance takes place in a natural amphitheatre at the foot of Mount Song. The performance space (claimed to be the world‘s largest) covers a huge three square kilometres, with the highest action taking place over 1400 metres above the audience‘s heads.

The 500­strong cast combine martial arts with Zen Buddhism, Tibetan music, exuberant dancing and portrayals of scenes from ancient China, and it‘s worth the price of an air ticket to China for this show alone.

Another spectacular sound­and­light show is the Glories of the Song Dynasty in the nearby city of Kaifeng. The dynasty, which lasted about 170 years from 960, was renowned for its vibrant cultural life and technological advances, including the invention of movable type printing (move over, Gutenberg). All this and much more comes to life in the show.

Visiting Kaifeng today, it‘s hard to credit this city once had a population of over 1.5 million. Today, the population is just 780,000, but the city has undergone radical sprucing­up, with the 1000 year old Rainbow Bridge being restored and new housing developments set around ornamental lakes. There‘s even a Zero O‘Clock supermarket. Did the surrealist artist Salvador Dali somehow get here before me¬

But it‘s time for a dinner break, and there could be no better place than Central China, the home of Yu­style cuisine. This originated from around 1600 BC, when the slave Ah Yeng, from the town of Yuzhou in Henan, developed a cuisine using different flavours to stimulate different organs of the body (chilli=hot for the lungs, sour for the liver and so on).

Later known as chef Yi Yin, he cooked his way into the heart of Emperor Tang, who appointed him prime minister. Song Dynasty chefs built on Yi Yin‘s work, adding to his "five flavours" the "five factors" of colour, fragrance, taste, design and tableware.

At a banquet highlighting Yu food, the signature dish of river carp cooked in a rich combination of soy sauce, shallots and millet wine comes as a taste sensation. And if you see dishes such as wild braised rabbit with chilli, thousand year­old eggs and smoked scorpions on the menus of Henan, the old Chinese adage that anything movable is edible will seem apt indeed.

In the far west of China‘s Henan province, the Yuntai Mountain World Geo­Park is a place of unique beauty. This world heritage park, covering 500 square kilometres, encompasses a staggering range of seasonally diverse scenery, from Asia‘s highest waterfall (the 314 metre Yuntai Falls) to the jadecoloured waters of Fenglin Gorge and the bamboo forests of Baijia Cliff. Try to escape the hordes who congregate at just one site, the admittedly splendid Hongshi or Red Stone Gorge.

Central China is also the birthplace of Chinese Buddhism. Take in China‘s first Buddhist monastery, the Baima (White Horse) Temple in Luoyang, not far from Kaifeng. This temple‘s illustrious history is the stuff of legends, including the story of a pair of white horses which carried the first Buddhist scriptures from Afghanistan to China.

Another world heritage site, Longmen Grottoes, lies about 13 kilometres on the other side of Luoyang. Stretching over a kilometre along a cliff face overlooking the Yishui River, over 2300 caves and niches and 100,000 statues of Buddha stun all the senses at once. The Buddha figures all bear expressions ranging from mild amusement to a broad grin.

Just north of Henan province, the arid landscapes of Shanxi province are home to some of China‘s finest eye­feasts. I, together with about a million other visitors, was stunned by the ancient walled city of Pingyao, 80 minutes by rail southwest of the provincial capital of Taiyuan.

Pingyao has quite rightly garnered a world heritage listing, as the entire town is a living cultural museum, the site of the world‘s first bank (and the world‘s first loan sharks¬) and hope to a big, transient population of backpackers ­ hence the presence of the old Chinese dish of sweet ‘n sour banana pancakes.

From Taiyuan, a spectacularly tortuous road winds northeast through increasingly barren landscapes, twisting and turning upon itself like a drunken snake. Finally, the road reaches the South Peak of Wutai Shan (Mount Wutai), from where a panoramic view of China‘s greatest temple complex, which gained a world heritage listing last June, opens up in a far­off valley.

Mount Wutai, said to be home to the Bodhisattva Manjushri, is ranked the greatest of China‘s "Four Sacred Mountains" (the others being Mount Emei in Sichuan province, Putuo in Zhejiang and Jiuhua in Anhui province). Stretching in a broad arc around the village of Taihuai were once more than 200 temples, the first dating from around 630. Now, some 108 still remain, of which 47 are open to visitors.

A good start to exploring Mt Wutai is at the Bodhisattva Summit (Pusading Temple), at the highest point on the hill overlooking Taihuai village. Down a steep staircase from Pusading, where Tibetan pilgrims make prostrations during their ascent, the huge expanses of Xiantong Temple, with over 400 halls, pavilions and monks‘ quarters, make this temple the biggest in China after Beijing‘s Temple of Heaven.

The road trip north from Wutai Shan, via the giddy 3000 metre­high North Peak, takes some beating. In the town of Yingxian, the Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogang Temple ("Wooden Pagoda" in short) has been compared with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I‘m not sure that Gustave Eiffel would agree, but there‘s no doubting the Wooden Pagoda‘s mystique.

The final stop on this trip, the Yungang Grottoes in the far northern city of Datong, the ancient capital of Shanxi, is also one of the most spectacular. Some 45 caves stretch for over a kilometre along the cliff face, with the sculptures blending Indian and Chinese carving styles. The ceilings and walls of the caves, particularly those of Cave Five, are a riot of colour.

And from Datong¬ As I take the slow train to Beijing, its coal­fired kitchen boilers brewing up geysers of green tea as we chug past the Great Wall of China and the arid landscapes of northern Hebei province, I can¬t help but be in awe of this time­worn, age­old China.

Beijing and super­modern Shanghai certainly have their charms, but for a dose of the real thing, you can‘t go past China‘s wild mid­west