Unjusa Temple

Unjusa does not look like other Korean temples. A narrow valley holds around twenty stone pagodas and some ninety stone Buddhas, standing in rows, leaning against rock faces, tucked under overhangs, most of them Goryeo work and many of them roughly cut. Records speak of a thousand of each, which is probably a way of saying a great many. The strangest pieces are two enormous figures lying on their backs on the bedrock near the top of the slope, carved in relief and never separated from the rock, as though the work stopped one afternoon and nobody came back for it. Who made any of it, and why here, is not settled.

What to look for

• The lying Buddhas - two huge figures carved flat on the bedrock and never raised.
• The pagoda rows - stone towers of unusual and sometimes crude design.
• The rock-face Buddhas - figures set against and under the valley's outcrops.
• The valley itself - a short circuit that takes in nearly all of it.

When to go

Spring and autumn are the good seasons; the valley is open and hot in midsummer. Weekday mornings are close to empty. Buses from Gwangju and Hwasun are infrequent, sometimes two or three hours apart, so check the return times or drive. Two hours covers the whole valley including the climb to the lying figures.

Good to know

The carving is rough and weathered, and anyone arriving from Seokguram will read it as primitive rather than refined. Explanation on site is thin and mostly in Korean, so much of what makes the place odd goes unexplained. Public transport is genuinely awkward. The site is small and the visit is over in an hour or two.

Nearby

Gwangju is an hour north; the Hwasun dolmen site lies in the same district.

Key facts