Seokguram Grotto

If you are visiting Bulguksa, adding Seokguram Grotto to a day’s itinerary requires little thought or effort. You’ll be glad you did.

From Bulguksa Temple’s ticket booth (be sure you’re at the right one) the hiking trail snakes upwards into the distance, built with cobbled stones enclosed by forest either side. Animals squeak, squawk and rustle about their business as the smell of fresh pine quickly invades the nostrils.

It certainly is pleasant enough with views (photographic opportunities) of the surrounding country.

After about forty-five minutes to an hour the hike will end and you’ll be rudely ejected out next to the Seokguram Grotto ticket booth - and a large smooth asphalt car park humming with various motor vehicles.

Don’t be dispirited.  By the vehicles, the people, the mass tourist feel of it all. Or by the shuttle bus that ferries everyone up from the temple.

Drink up the views of the east sea that are absolutely glorious towards sunset and take a moment for personal reflection.

The main event is still to come.

Pay a nominal 4,000won entry fee, proceed through the gate and hike for another fifteen minutes or so. Thankfully the gradient here is almost level.

Outside, from a distance the grotto looks as if it got lost on its way to a Lord of the Rings set. It’s something more a-kin to a Hobbit’s house in the Shire.

Built long before its contents were, the artificial grotto could have been made as far back as BC 3.

It’s what’s inside Seokguram Grotto that everyone comes to see.

It is here the great stone Buddha, the “zenith of [Buddhist] artistic beauty” rests.

Like Temple below, it was built by Kim Dae-Seong in 751 and took thirty years to complete.

According to the upbeat, boisterous Gyeongju tourist board literature it is considered "the essence of cultural and scientific excellence, religious aspiration and faith of the Silla people". The giant granite Buddha sits there (behind a glass screen) on its lotus pedestal throne in meditation and silence. Flanked by eight ancient Indian gods, four heavenly guardians and ten of Buddha’s disciples.

Some visitors however remain completely nonplussed by the whole affair. It’s a giant stone Buddha, so what? Others are awed. It’s hard to believe that a visitor wouldn’t take something positive away from the experience though for a few quite simply put: it’s not their cup of tea.

But those must be a rare type of people indeed.

Seokguram Grotto is the east in all of its glory. Some might try to say that they’ve  “seen it before ”. But you haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen this.

Getting there: Use the same methods as if visiting Bulguksa Temple. The shuttle bus for the Grotto leaves from the temple car park. Ask at the tourist information booth (next to the terminus for the 10/11 buses) for more specific details.