Korea unmasked

GRAHAM REID returns to a country he finds fascinating, but is sure few others do.

Not that you might have noticed, but 2001 is designated "Visit Korea Year." At least it is by some well-funded tourist organisation up there in the place once described as "the Land of Morning Calm."

Tell that charming description to the bus drivers of Seoul and Pusan, the construction workers tossing up another high rise of apartments just after dawn, and the thousands of kids on their way to school as the sun rises. Korea these days is far from calm at any time. It is politically volatile, abuzz with construction sites, and by any measure populated by people who are industrious in the extreme.

None of which makes it an easy sell for a tourist authority.

Korea comes with a bad rap: it is perceived as either too cold (is 10 below too cold?) or too hot (a humid mid-30s is nice, right?); there are enemies poised to the north just a 40-minute tank drive from the capital; most of the language is indecipherable either in print or when spoken; and not a lot of people like the highly spiced food.

Yep, this land of some 46 million in an area about a third the size of New Zealand would seem to have an image problem.

Korea, much like New Zealand, isn't on the way to anywhere. If you go to Korea, that's where you are going. But not a lot of people do, or want to.

Frankly, I loved the place from the second I stepped off the plane two years ago and out onto a street gently brushed by snow. As we get older first impressions are everything, and the immediate feeling I got from Seoul - perhaps amplified in the imagination after pristine clean and punctual Japan - was it was likeably ragged around the edges. The pavements were cracked just like at home, but the bus and subway system extremely efficient.

Kids and teenagers laughed on the streets and held hands, and people in the cheap yogwans (the contemporary equivalent of the traditional traveller's inn) were helpful despite the language impasse. At night older people gathered in tents along the roadside and drank beer and soju (the powerful local liquor). Everyone ate the cheap fast food from small roadside stalls such as chicken kebabs ($2) and Ttokbukgi which is rice dough wrapped in a stick like a hot dog and simmered in a warming broth ($2 for two with cups of broth thrown in.)

And Korean people are remarkably helpful. Pause for a minute or two in the subway with a furrowed brow and your map out and someone - businessman, school kid or university student - will be at your side asking if they can help.

Sit in T'apkol park in central Seoul and an old man will engage you in fascinating conversation about the history of his country.

Unfortunately you can't put stuff like that, the real stuff, into a tourism brochure or television advertisement. But over a week just mucking in and hoping for the best, Korea won me.

The big cities are initially mind-boggling but easy to negotiate by subway, and out at historic sites such as those near Kyongju an easy four and a half hour air-conditioned bus ride from Seoul (90 minutes from Pusan ) the distinctive Buddhist architecture and tombs from the Shilla Kingdom (from the 7th to 9th century) are breathtaking in their beauty.

Korean culture, like its language, is fascinating. Temples are elaborately painted, brightly coloured traditional masks used in theatre and dance make great gifts for the folks at home, the ancient history reveals itself gently to those who make the effort to seek it out, and contemporary Korean pop and rock bands are as good as their American or European counterparts.

This mountainous peninsula, which only takes about six hours to traverse from top to bottom, is full of awe-inducing sheer mountains and broad river valleys.

But as we know, especially those who have been to Venice, spent a week in Provence or really enjoyed their long weekend on the Gold Coast, first impressions often come through rose-tinted sunglasses.

Recently I was back in Korea and once again just mucked in. While others flew from Pusan to Seoul I took the bus, they stayed in top hotels and I found cheap yogwans again. I ate at the street stalls and cheap restaurants and the food was never less than delicious, and I didn't get sick. The beer is good (Hite is recommended) and readily available Jinro soju is lethal in the nicest possible way.

Against all evidence and preconceptions to the contrary, Korea is a pretty good place to be a tourist. It runs at about much the same as New Zealand price-wise when it comes to hotels and good restaurants. Expect to pay around $150-$200 in the better places and $60 a head for a slap-up dinner ... but that's at the high end of the market. There's a much more interesting trip to be had if you aim downmarket.

The yogwans - easily identifiable by a logo which looks like a bowl with three stylised lines of steam rising from the top - are everywhere and these tiny rooms, much like Japanese ryokan inns, are mostly comfortable, clean and perfectly serviceable. They are also cheap and range around $50 to $60. Just ask to see the room first, and check it has hot water. But don't expect anything ritzy.

Eating can be extremely cheap also if you aim for smaller restaurants. Expect to pay around $10 a meal (which comes with all the usual kimchi and pickled cucumbers), beers are about $5 and soju, which you should try carefully, at least once, is much the same.

Be warned, however, bulgogi, which many New Zealanders know and enjoy, is usually only served for two. Unlike Japan, where many eateries helpfully have picture menus, in Korea very few do. You'd be wise to learn a few helpful food phrases, or be prepared to point and smile helplessly quite a lot.

And don't ignore the street stalls where you can point, then sit and drink in the ambience.

If you want to get out and around the countryside, the intercity buses are comfortable. Prices are reasonable, too, the five-hour trip between Pusan and Seoul is around $50.

Such a drive will allow you to see the topography of the country and also the development of enormous satellite cities, often outside other satellite cities. Rice paddies alternate with high-rise development. As all these whiz by, you wonder what's the converse of "beautifully ugly," because that's the go-ahead construction site that is Korea today.

Back in the mid-80s the BBC broadcast a programme suggesting that by the year 2000 every Korean would enjoy a standard of living equal to that of the British middle-classes at that time. Naturally, there was some cynicism among Anglophiles who heard it. But looking at the rapidly increasing pace of development, even in rural areas, that was a more accurate prediction than many might have believed.

This from a country which less than 50 years ago was a war-ravaged ruin.

The price is paid in other ways, though. Birds are conspicuous by their absence and over the cities hangs a still film of ozone-reducing pollution.

But don't let that put you off considering Korea for a fascinating, inexpensive and preconception-challenging holiday.

Just check the climate before you go and be warned, the Koreans are very sociable and quite like a drink. One bottle of soju is fine, two somewhat reckless and three ... sorry, you're on your own.