You should be able to click on the markers to see the placenames and zoom in etc to see the terrain!
Saturday:
Left Mokpo and headed for the ferry. Really busy around the terminal, because apparently this is the peak time when all Koreans go visit Jeju. We sat down next to a friendly looking family and chatted for a while, they were shocked to hear we were going for 9 days! Finally just when we were getting towards the ferry, they handed us a "God Loves You" cd of gospel music that their child had performed in. We were a little surprised, but we took it and jumped on the ferry.
Ferry wasn't too exciting, but it was a little strange. They all sit on the floor over here, so naturally rather than having a room of chairs, we were put on some lino on the floor. This is very peculiar to me, but it seems like a very lucrative way of fitting more people on board. Talked to a few more people who were shocked that we were staying so long. Seems like in Korea you go for 3 days....everyone goes for 3 days, so why wouldn't you?
Arrived in Jeju City late on and decided to walk to the bus station, managed to get some Bebimbap there (It's like a bowl of rice and veg with an egg, very tasty). Luckily the bus actually went from terminal, however it pretty much went straight back to the ferry terminal before going to the beach - doh!
Got to Samyang Beach as it was getting dark and pitched up next to some nice Korean guys. Rained hard in the night, but thankfully we'd put the flysheet on...the Koreans were less prepared! There was much shouting at 4am.
Sunday:
Felt bad in the morning, we hadn't slept well. A monsoon + managing to put most of the beach in our tent meant we weren't too comfy. Went swimming! Pretty sweet to roll out of bed into the water. We got shouted at by the Ajumas (old ladies) on the beach, because we walked on the weird lumps in the sand that they were making. Not really sure what that was about, some kind of beach retention maybe? Very odd. Had a shower which was nice. The Koreans do public amenities very well, lots of drinking water fountains, public showers and toilets everywhere!
Jumped back on the bus into the city, headed for a bike hire shop. Found the bike hire shop, where we were very tempted by the scooters. However, we stuck to our guns and hired good old fashioned pedal bikes. Unfortunately, only mine had a baggage carrier thingey, so I ended up taking the big bag, but on the other hand, Erin had a bad seat, terrible handlebars and pedals that sucked :D The bikes were $10 per day each, so we rented them for 5 days. Lonely planet said if you were reasonably fit, you could do the island in about 3 days easily.
Grabbed a pizza, then left the city, bound for Sangumburi Crater. After the first 5km of uphills, we started to question our "Jeju is probably mostly flat with a big mountain in the middle" theory. Then Erin pointed out that craters generally occurred at the top of large hills...often called mountains. The roads didn't help much either, it was a nice 6 later dual carriageway which turned into an ordinary road, so we had massive quarry trucks trying to kill us. They'd just beep their horns and assume you'd dive into the ditch at the side of the road....
Collapsed into a petrol station, where we started to realise the litre of water we had between the two of us was a severe underestimation. Drank a lot of the petrol station's water, while the attendants looked on bemused. It seems people don't really do exercise in Korea much. Met my first Buddhist monk, he jumped out of the minivan he was refuelling and came to chat to us. As he left, he held up some kind of picture with Korean on it, while chanting something. A blessing? We hoped so! As we were leaving, the garage guys gave us 2 bottles of ice water which was very nice of them. Things were looking up!
Pretty much the next 15Km was straight uphill, resulting in a lot of walking. The sun was really hot, even though we'd left after 2pm! Hit the top of the last hill and it was downhill to the crater! Crater was large, full of trees. See picture - Korean didn't seem to understand we were there to see the crater, so he took a picture of the sky it seems. It was here we found out that other than Hallasan, there were 470 additional craters on the island of Jeju. Bad news for cyclists....
Managed to get offroad, much to the amazement of Koreans everywhere. We asked about 3 people how to get onto a road on the map, to which they all thought we were crazy for leaving the motorways. As it turned out, the road was nice and quiet, very flat and most importantly, downhill! We were headed to Gimnyeong Beach for the night, but the road I was trying to follow turned out to have not been built yet. Thanks map makers, very useful. Somehow managed to get to the beach and found it to be a lovely white sands bay! Cooked up some food on the stove and then got told it was a private beach and we'd have to move behind the loo block. Ah well, slightly more smelly, but significantly less sandy at least.
Monday:
Woke up after a good nights sleep, but with very sore bottoms! Those seats hurt us a lot more than we expected. Went to the Manjanggul Lava Caves, which are a national heritage site. Very cool, see pic (flash didn't work but imagine the largest lava thingey you've ever seen). Huuuuuuggeee caves, where the lava flowed through and a cool column at the end. Still can't quite get over how huge they were. Then hit the Maze Park which was pretty good fun. Tried cactus ice cream - it's surprisingly good!Left the caves bound for the Monguri Campsite, choosing to stick to the coastal path and head up at the last minute. We'd learnt our lesson! Nice easy cycle for most of the day, but then the last 10km was just straight uphill. Halfway up, we both died pretty hard and I went into a shop to get some oranges. Jeju is famous for its oranges and we'd seen plenty of groves, but it seems that purchasing less than a box would be impossible. Still, after much gesticulating at my bike, I managed to get a free tangerine. Ah well, better than nothing. While sitting eating it, some Koreans in a car pulled up and threw ice water at us with a wave and a smile. Very nice!
Finally arrived at the campsite up in the mountains before dark. We were shocked to find there was no shop there, so had to cycle into the next village then bring it back. Campsite was massive, managed to get a (cold) shower! Cooked lots of noodles and watched the ridiculously huge insects fly into lights for a while. Chatted to a Korean who gave us 2 cans of plum juice. More freebies! Rained again in the night.
Tuesday:
Woke up and realised we were really pretty high up (see pic). Saddled up and set off for Seongeup Folklore Village, where we found an awful lot of old style houses. Managed to find one with a guide outside, who took us in to see everything. It was all very exciting, particularly the "Jeju shit pig", so named as it ate all of the villagers poop. It was funny listening to the little Korean woman describing it all in broken English and very animated gestures.Jumped on the bikes again for a long ride to Jeongbang Waterfall. Supposedly the only waterfall in the whole of Asia that falls into the sea(!). Nearly died around 12pm due to the intense heat, but managed to find an orange seller who let us shade in her place as long as we bought some oranges. Managed to get a single one and lots of water, happy days. Then sprinted to the nearest village for chicken burgers and air conditioning!
Arrived at the waterfall after a leisurely cycle down the coast, where we paid and went to see this fabulous spectacle of a waterfall going into the sea. Now anyone in my family will probably think I'm crazy at this stage, as my travels around Scotland have allowed me to see more than a few waterfalls, but when in Korea, do as the Koreans, so we bought our coconut with straws in and went down to see it. It was a waterfall, not particularly impressive and not even falling into the sea! It was more falling onto the shore and then flowing into the sea. Tobermory bay has it beat!We were very hot and sticky, so went swimming in the pool, much to the delight of the paddling Koreans. However, we got shouted at by some kind of lifeguard when we went into more than knee deep water...stupid country. So, we went into the sea where he couldn't yell at us!
Much cleaner and much wetter, we got back on our bikes and cycled off for Seogwipo City. Found a pizza place, ate and then decided to cycle on to Jungmun Beach, the most popular beach in Korea. After a scary cycle in the dark, we found the beach at the bottom of a huge hill. Set up camp far away from the entrance where we'd probably get shouted at, right next to a no camping sign we found the next day. Went swimming then slept, under the shadow of 5 hotels up on the cliffs.
Wednesday:
Got up and went swimming, decided we wouldn't go back up that huge hill on our bikes. Picked the bikes up and started to climb the hotel steps up the cliffs. This was a hard climb, but we managed it! I only had a small gash where my gears had tried to bite me. We were met by astonished Koreans at the top, but since we were in the grounds of a hotel we decided to get out of there as fast as we could! Found a road and more importantly, a drinks machine, and tried to get some sugar into us.
Left the beach, headed for the Museum of Sex and Health, which looked amusing. Got there, surrounded by all sorts of rude sculptures, then went inside for an even ruder experience. Needless to say, it was all in Korean, but the pictures certainly got the point across!
Once we'd finished there, we headed off to the Jeju Sculpture Park, which was full of all sorts of sculptures. Very cool, but it got boring after a while. As we left, we realised Erin had a flat tire, doh! Luckily, there were some Korean guys on bikes in the park, so we asked them if they had any repair kits or a pump, but no luck. Thankfully, they decided to help us out and found out where the nearest village was, escorted us there and managed to find us a place that would repair the puncture. After much thanks and some drinks, we split up and went our separate ways, Erin and I heading towards O'Sullocs Tea Museum. The museum turned out to be less exciting than I had thought it would be, but it was free! Also, the lack of black tea (you could buy a small pack for $20) meant I was pretty disappointed. Hey ho, we left less caffinated that I wanted to be, towards the Spirited Garden. The garden looked cool from the outside, but was excessively expensive to enter, so we decided not to bother. Onwards to Geumneung Beach.
Saw a temple on the way down and decided to have a look around, said hi to the four monks sitting around at the front, who responded by telling us to come sit down and eat with them. So, we sat and ate watermelon which they kept cutting up and force feeding us. The conversation was pretty poor, since I don't speak any Korean and Erin couldn't understand their accent. Still, I nodded and laughed a lot, so that seemed to satisfy them. After eating a lot of watermelon we decided that rather than be sick, we'd be rude and told them we needed to leave. Ran to our bikes and got out of there before they could give us any more food!
The beach was a very beautiful white sands beach again, probably my favourite beach on the island. We found a lot of Koreans camping in the woodland next to the beach, so we joined in with that, eager to avoid a sandy tent! Ate fried chicken on the beach and watched the sun go down before heading to bed.Thursday:
Got up and went swimming for a while in the lovely clear waters. Decided to grab some food to cook on the camping stove and almost bought some nice looking meat which turned out to be pig brains. Good food avoidance! I'd been burnt on the back of my neck (stupid sweat taking off the suncream immediately...) and so I got a bandanna and a straw hat to protect me. The hat kept blowing off, but the bandanna did its job perfectly!
We headed off to the Remains against Mongolia, where there was meant to be a massive fortress and a huge stone pagoda. Halfway there, we found a temple and again had a look around. It was huge! And looked brand new (see pic). We got invited in, much to our surprise and were met with a plate of ricecakes, watermelon and a pint of ice coffee. Argh! Rice cakes are pretty much the stodgiest things in the world, but rather than be rude we managed to much through them all, while the monks watched on. Again, they were very chilled out, but desperate to feed us. Snooped around a bit, then cycled off, feeling a good few stones heavier!Arrived at the Mongolian remains, which weren't too exciting. It was a plaque in the middle of a field, which you had to pay to see. It was after closing time though, so we jumped the wall to see what all the fuss was about. Nope, it was just a plaque in the middle of the field. Got spooked by a guy in a van, so got out of there fast, heading towards Iho Beach.
The beach had a cool little place to camp again, under some trees. We met some crazy Korean who appeared to live there, ever since leaving New York. He was an ex mafia/monk/martial arts expert who had been a kitchen boy/salesman and now he liked to direct traffic in the car park. Very peculiar. Slept after cooking some pork and peppers on the beach.
Friday:
We were pretty close to the city, so we took our time in the morning and relaxed. After returning the bikes, we went off to meet up with a university friend, Ant, who was in Seogwipo City. Decided we'd go via Sanbangsan Temple which we'd missed on the cycle. Jumped on a bus and got there, climbed up and saw a monk chanting. It was a nice big cave with free healing water (see pic). We were trying to work out where the next bus was to get to Cheonjiyeon Waterfall, where we were meeting Ant, when the Korean family we were asking told us to jump in the car. Oh well, we thought, what the hell.
Car had 2 kids who were about 12, their Mum, their Aunt and their Grandparents. We got free chocolate (cactus flavour!) and the adults tried to force the kids to speak English to us. It was good fun! Very kind of them to give us a lift, however there was much confusing since there were two waterfalls that were very similar in name and they couldn't work out which one we wanted to go to. Ah well, we got there in the end and saw the waterfall that didn't fall into the sea (see pic).Met up with Ant and we headed off for food, then drinks and then bed, in a small triangle of grass we found up the road from Ant's hostel. Unfortunately, it appeared that something the street seller sold us to eat wasn't so great, but luckily only I was struck with food poisoning. Doh! Had the full works during the night and felt terrible till I found some Asprin at a chemist. Bugger.
Saturday:
We were planning on climbing Mount Halla, but since I felt terrible, I was planning on stealing Ant's room and staying in bed. So, I said bye to Erin and Ant who went off for their walk while I watched TV. We met up later on to have some rice soupy stuff and it turned out that they didn't even make it up the mountain! Koreans are very worried about things like losing people up mountains, so if you don't make it to the first shelter by 1pm, you aren't allowed up since you won't have time to come back down again, apparently. They arrived 30 mins late, so they got turned away.
Went out for food and drink again, then back to the hostel. Erin and I decided to splash out on a room and it was a good idea! Great nights sleep.
Sunday:
Had to catch the boat at 3pm, so we headed out to Jungmun Beach for a quick swim in the rain, before getting a bus/taxi to the ferry terminal and catching our boat. Crossing was uneventful, then in the evening we went out for Birthday drinks, as I was turning 22 the next day!
