Gayasan National Park

Gayasan reaches 1,433 metres at Sangwangbong and has been treated as a sacred mountain for a very long time, but the reason most visitors come is at its foot: Haeinsa, founded in 802, which houses the Tripitaka Koreana - over eighty-one thousand wooden printing blocks carved in the thirteenth century holding the complete Buddhist canon, the most comprehensive and best-preserved set in the world, inscribed by UNESCO. The blocks are kept in the Janggyeong Panjeon depositories, fifteenth-century buildings designed with slatted windows of different sizes on each wall and a floor layered with charcoal, salt and lime to control humidity and airflow - an early piece of climate engineering that has kept the wood sound for six centuries and is itself the UNESCO listing. Visitors see the halls from outside; the blocks are not handled. Above the temple the Hongnyudong valley runs up through pines and boulders, and the ridge routes climb to the summit.

What you actually see

• Janggyeong Panjeon - the depository halls and their airflow design.
• The Tripitaka blocks - the canon glimpsed through the slatted walls.
• Haeinsa - the temple complex and its courtyards.
• Hongnyudong valley - the pine and boulder walk above.

When to go

May to June and October. Autumn colour in the valley is excellent and busy. The temple is worth the trip alone without the climb.

Honest expectations

The woodblocks cannot be entered or handled - viewing is through the depository walls. It is a working monastery: dress modestly, keep quiet. Park fee applies at the gate.

Nearby

Hapcheon town and its lake are below; Daegu is an hour and a half east.