Why go:
Haeinsa is peaceful, fascinating, in a tranquil location, a new experience, slightly giggle-inducing, in a stunning mountain and forest setting and other-worldly.
Is it worth going out of your way to visit:
Yes. This was the only temple we went to and I suspect other temples are similar in many respects. I actually feel you would be missing out if you didn’t incorporate a temple stay (not just a visit) into your trip.
What were my highlights:
The evening (6.08 pm) and morning (3.18 am) drumming and bell donging (it’s not “ringing”, it really is a deep, reverberating “dong”), eating with the monks and watching their routine in fascination and awe, being out and about in such a beautiful location early in the morning, the out-of-the-ordinary-ness about the whole experience and a feeling of being privileged to stay there.
Haeinsa
If, like us, you don’t have time or future planning skills, at least stay in a temple over night and participate in a few of the temple rituals. We paid 40,000 won each for dinner, prayer, bed (“bed” in the loosest sense) and breakfast. You need to arrive before 5 pm when the temple closes to the public, ideally by about 3 pm.
We went there very much off-season (early April) so got a dorm to ourselves and were two of only maybe six guests in total. The kind man who checked us in, as it were, escorted us to evening drumming (call to prayer) and guided us through the salutations in the temple. If you have a bad back, dicky knees or other joint ailments, doing as many knee crouch to standing salutations as we did is exhausting. But it’s a hugely fascinating ritual.
As for the drumming, I found it mesmerising. Sadly, trying to video it, I had it on mute but otherwise, I would genuinely have listened to it a few times by now post-trip. It was lovely. Especially breaking the 3.18 am morning (dark) silence.
We had dinner at 5.40 (massive plates, it’s rude to leave food and easy to put too much on your plate – be careful. Though there is a discreet waste food bin in the area where you deposit your plate and bowl for cleaning) and breakfast at 6.10. At neither time were we used to eating that early and neither were we hungry. You are not supposed to talk while eating meals and it is somewhat surreal hearing the sounds of a room of monks and a few guests eating their food. You have to subtly watch the monks though, their dining rituals are fascinating and so, so precise.
Our dorm was horrid and I certainly wouldn’t stay there for the accommodation. The yo were very thin, the bedding was dirty, the floors were dirty and the bathroom wasn’t particularly pleasant (hygiene-wise). It was also stiflingly hot with the yo on. Fortunately, there was a series of doors so we opened our kind of porch door in the night; had we not been able to do so, I am sure I would have boiled. I also appreciate that we didn’t have to share the large room, as we would have had to do in peak season.
After breakfast was the nicest time. No tourists were there (c6.30 am), the light was lovely and we had that mildly smug feeling of being awake somewhere lovely before most people are usually up and about. That said, we were utterly exhausted and went back to bed after walking around and taking some photos!
Lights out at 9pm, we chose to get up at 3.05 am for the 3.18 drumming (which went on for maybe 20 minutes, after which monks and proper guests file into the salutation area for me up/down exercises/salutations/prayers), went back to bed, got up at 6 am for our 6.10 am breakfast (all times are strict and must be adhered to), wandered around, went back to bed and were finally up and about by 9 am. Knackered.
As for the small town outside the temple area, it is small, there’s not much to do and shops, etc, don’t open before 9 am (except for one old-fashioned general store from which we got drinks and snacks for our journey).
Practical information:
You pay to get into the national park area, then there is a road into the mountains. Finding the temple isn’t as easy as you’d expect and it took us an embarrassingly long time to find the temple. You kind of have to park and walk c1.2km up a path. We had to do this at a near sprint as we arrived at 4.40 pm (having spent about 40 minutes trying to find where we needed to go). If you have a car, you can drive up a very steep road which is otherwise blocked by a barrier and officious guard. The guard wouldn’t let us in until we said the magic open sesame words, “Temple Stay”. We only figured out this road once we’d walked up there, booked ourselves in, raced back to the car, drove the car up the hill, parked right in front of our dorm and raced to dinner, just in time for 5.40 pm! Tense, sweaty and far too energetic!
You could spend a fair bit of time hiking around the national park. It is very pretty. However, for me it was all about the temple. It is a very, very touristy area (and at the time of year we went, it was predominantly South Korean tourists, lots of them). In summer, I expect it is extraordinarily busy and I suspect a bit of its charm would be lost for me.
There are no facilities for cooking or tea/coffee/hot drinks at the temple stay other than at meal times.
There are rules and they are strict, but they suit the place and it’s easy to respect and adapt to the rules in those circumstances.
I mentioned earlier it’s a bit giggle-inducing. That, for me, is because there are lots of occasions when you should be quiet and coupled with the unfamiliarness of what to do, that makes me prone to giggling.
It took us two hours and 40 minutes to drive from there to Damyang. We thought it would take less time but there were roadworks, single file traffic and lots of slow vehicles going up the hills. There were so, so many things being constructed along the way, including some huge bridges. The motorway cost us 3,400 won.
