China is a giddy fusion of ultra-modern and ancient. Bullet trains whizz between Singapore-new cities where skyscrapers glistening with neon tower over Athens-old historical centres. Shanghai shimmers over the steaming Huangpo river. Old Xi’an at the end of the Silk Road huddles beneath the spires of the new metropolis, wooden mosques, medieval market-alleys and temples hidden behind massive, gated medieval walls. Vast Beijing sprawls between the Great Wall around the labyrinthine Imperial Forbidden City and the towers of the Temple of Heaven. Surrounding them all and dozens besides is the Chinese countryside – where misty mountain-tops, rhododendron rainforests and deserts of billowing dunes hide relics older than Stonehenge, butterfly-quiet monasteries and caves of Cyclopean stone Buddhas.
