Handwritten Histories in Haeinsa

Thanks to what I can only surmise was a bad combination of an intestine completely stripped of all healthy bacteria (antibiotics will do that to you) and a rather large helping of mountain spring water from Wednesday hike up Mount Namsan, I spent the better part of today with the Korean equivalent of "Delhi Belly." I really shouldn't complain; I wasn't stuck on a bus somewhere or out somewhere with Mother Nature, miles from a porcelain throne. My body even had the decency to hold off until I had some quality reading material to keep me occupied in between potty trips. There's nothing pretty about a bout of traveler's diarrhea, but it is what it is and there just ain't no getting around it.

Finally, by early afternoon, my body seemed stable enough to consent to me taking a day-trip by bus to Haeinsa, another of the glorified Buddhist temples (and a UNESCO World Heritage site at that) sprinkled among the mountainous footholds of Korea. What makes Haeinsa famous isn't so much the temple itself as what it houses: 81, 340 carved wood blocks, on which are written by hand the entire Buddhist scriptures. Known as the Tripitaka Koreana, these ancient records have been passed down for nearly 1,000 years (although apparently the current records were recreated in the 1200's after invaders destroyed the originals). They are one of the world's most complete records of sacred Buddhist texts.

I was fortunate to visit Haeinsa late in the afternoon, while clouds misting through the mountains of Gayasan National Park, which border Haeinsa to the west, kept the air cool and the mood mystical. On the road sloping into the hills where the Haeinsa temple resides, families walked together along waterfalls and over bridges, the sing-song of their voices hanging in the air like the low-lying clouds just beyond reach.

I took a short detour which led further down the road past the temple's main entrance, to a hermitage and a side road lined with brightly colored lanterns. A cool breeze blew through the leafy branches, and rippled through the lanterns with the softness of feathers. A monk, dressed from head to toe in a long, gray robe and loose cotton pants, walked in silence along the shoulder of the road, a cane in his right hand. There was nothing but the soft patter of his footsteps that could be heard above the rustling leaves.

Returning to the temple complex, I joined other temple visitors in walking through what appeared to be some kind of meditative maze, a system of concentric pathways leading in one fluid course from entrance to exit, folding in on itself and back out again in four geometric quadrants. Respecfully, we each walked in silence, our palms touching lightly as if in a posture of peace or prayer, eyes focused on the perimeter of the path marked with raised stone along the dirt-covered ground.


Climbing above the pagodas and the maze on a series of stone steps leading to another, much larger group of buildings, I looked back to see a frame of gray-blue mountain peaks jutting out from just beyond the borders of Haeinsa. In the late afternoon light, the scenery was poetic.

I continued walking along the outer walls of four earth-colored buildings before recognizing them as the rooms holding the Tripitaka Koreana. Through slats in the walls, I peered in at row upon row of books lining wooden shelves, carefully housed within the confines of the temple. I watched as an elderly monk, his body cloaked in loose-fitting linens, took a young boy by the hand and led him into one of the special-access libraries. His face was curled up in a smile as he pointed out sacred texts to the boy. I watched for a few moments longer through the slats before descending back towards the pagodas, back towards the temple entrance, back towards the road where I would meet the bus returning me to big-city Daegu once more.

The rest of the evening was a blur. I made it back to Bron's place in time to shower and change, and head off for a little nightlife with him and some of his foreigner friends. Quite in contrast to my day of rest and old-world reverie, and probably against my better judgment considering the state of affairs of my stomach just this morning, we swigged a few pots of maggeoli (traditional Korean rice wine) down the hatch, along with a few yummy side dishes, pajeon (vegetable pancakes) and dubu kimchi (kimchi cooked up with pork belly and served with heated squares of tofu). Maggeoli was another "first" for me, and before I knew what hit me, my head was spinning with the familiar reminder that full-blown overindulgence wasn't far off.

Near midnight, I bowed out of the party with Bron (who had a teaching gig the next morning), and we stumbled back to the Sinchon River area to his flat, where I promptly got horizontal on the two-seater sofa and tried to still the seesaw in my head. Between dongdongju in Busan, the soju fest at Hanjin Hostel, and tonight's indulgence, I was ready to take a break from the bottle for the rest of my vacation. But while it lasted, I certainly had managed to find good company to celebrate my vacation time with. Tomorrow marked the last day of my trip, and as I tumbled into a deep sleep, I vowed to make it one to remember.