Journey to the West: Where the Monkey King Walks

Everything starts on Flower-Fruit Mountain, in the novel's country of Aolai beside the sea. The monkeys find a waterfall, cheer "好水，好水！" (good water!) and dare one another to leap through it. Behind the waterfall is the cave whose name is carved at its mouth: "Flower-Fruit Mountain blessed land, Water Curtain Cave". The leaper becomes their king. The novel gives no real address. Lianyungang's Huaguo Shan is the most common modern identification, and now a tourist attraction, but scholars name several rival mountains.

Location precision: The novel puts the mountain in the fictional land of Aolai; Lianyungang is the most common modern candidate, with no scholarly consensus.

Visitor guidance: Huaguo Shan at Lianyungang, Jiangsu, is run as a tourist attraction.

Having left Chang'an, the monk Tang Sanzang rides a day or two before reaching Famen Temple. The abbot comes out with more than five hundred monks lined up on both sides to receive him. This is the first real temple on the road west, and the novel names it outright. The temple still stands in Fufeng County, about 120 kilometres west of Xi'an, and is known for a relic said to be a finger bone of the Buddha.

Visitor guidance: Famen Temple lies in Fufeng County, about 120 km west of Xi'an.

The pilgrims reach a land where it is hot in every season. An old man says the mountain ahead is the Flaming Mountain, eight hundred li of fire where no grass grows. Only Princess Iron Fan's banana-leaf fan can put it out, and Wukong needs three attempts to get it from her. Naming Turpan's Flaming Mountains for this episode dates from the Qianlong era at the latest. The novel itself describes a fantasy range, not Turpan.

Location precision: The identification with Turpan's Flaming Mountains was made by later writers, at the latest in the Qianlong era; the novel's fiery mountain is fantasy.

Visitor guidance: The Flaming Mountains lie near Turpan, Xinjiang.

After the last tribulations, the four pilgrims climb to the Leiyin temple, where the Buddha waits. At the gate Tang Sanzang announces himself by his own name: "弟子玄奘到了" (disciple Xuanzang has arrived). The novel's destination is half-real, half-legendary. Its real counterpart is Vulture Peak, the Buddha's favourite retreat at Rajgir in Bihar, India. The novel's own picture of the temple is invented.

Location precision: The novel's Leiyin Temple is a legendary place; the pin marks the real Vulture Peak at Rajgir that the story is built on.

The scriptures are fetched; the four travellers are carried east in a single day, and Chang'an comes into view. Emperor Taizong had already built a sutra-viewing tower outside the city to receive them. The novel never mentions the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, but the historical Xuanzang built it to keep the scriptures he brought from India, and it is the nearest real echo of that return.

Location precision: The novel's sutra-viewing tower is not a surviving building; the pin marks the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an, built by the historical Xuanzang for his scriptures.

Visitor guidance: The Big Wild Goose Pagoda stands in Yanta District, Xi'an.