Leshan, a Buddha carved from a cliff

Where the Min, Dadu and Qingyi rivers meet in southern Sichuan, a red sandstone cliff has been carved into the Leshan Giant Buddha, seventy-one metres of seated Maitreya with his hands on his knees and his feet in the water. A monk named Haitong began the work in 713, hoping the spoil tipped into the river would calm the currents that were sinking boats at the confluence, and legend says he blinded himself rather than let officials divert the funds. It took ninety years and three generations of craftsmen; the ears alone are seven metres long, and a hidden drainage system inside the head and shoulders still channels rainwater away from the stone.

There are two ways to meet him. The Nine Bends staircase runs down the cliff face beside the Buddha, a slow shuffling queue that ends between his toes and rewards you with the scale of the thing. The other is a river boat, which pulls out into the confluence and lets you see the whole figure at once, along with the sleeping-Buddha silhouette formed by the hills behind him. On the same headland stand Wuyou Temple, with its hall of five hundred expressive arhats, and the Mahaoya Han-dynasty cliff tombs.

Leshan is also the doorstep of Mount Emei, one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains, where a stone pilgrim path climbs through cloud forest and troops of Tibetan macaques to the Golden Summit at 3,079 metres. Before leaving, work through the city's snack streets: bobo chicken skewers in chilli oil, sweet-skin duck and qiaojiao beef broth, then continue deeper into China.