Done In Donuts & Bugger King

Well I had actually got a plan when I got to the railway station in Seoul. This was from The Rough Guide so I should have known it was dodgy. Go to Busan (Korea’s second city) the slow way stopping off occasionally.

So I was heading for Danyang. The guide tells you that Seoul has several bus stations but fails to mention that there is more than one railway station – there are at least three. No prizes for guessing that I went to the main railway station only to be sent on my way. Korea has a very small  but well run, timely  rail network so why there are two separate terminii (at least) in Seoul is beyond me. It can’t exactly have been the great railway boom in the UK in the 1840s when all the independent railway companies built separate stations along the Euston Road.

Anyway I am on my way and can’t stay awake. Bart will tell you a few stories about me, public transport and sleep – I have even been known to sleep through aircraft take off.   The reason you go this route is because of the scenery! Got to Danyang. Well close. This is one of those places where they decide to build the railway station near the railway line, not near the town – planners! A taxi ride for 7 or a walk of 40 minutes along the river? No contest. Cross the main road and take the track down to the river. A guy stopped me and said no – he had no English but his meaning was clear. He was right. You walk 1 ½ kilometres along a main road, including crossing the river, and then walk forty minutes along the very good path.If the guy hadn't stopped me it would have meant a very difficult walk and, maybe a swim with my pack.

The following day I had another example of kindly interference. I was walking along the river for four of five kilometres to look at some famous rocks. The road/path deteriorated until I was on a fairly rough track heading under some giant concrete stanchions that were to support a six lane highway.

Some guys at the top of a bank of rubble under the aforementioned highway said no. I should climb up to them, which I duly did. One of them lead me out on to the unopened highway and offered to drive me down it. My destination was only a kilometre away so I declined. Did they really build that road just for me to walk down?

My destination was three rocks in the river. Apparently these were a man in the middle with a concubine on one side. On the other – facing away- was an angry wife who didn’t like the fact that her husband had taken a concubine because wifie couldn’t give him a son.

This is the sort of imaginative bullshit? incite? that I am used to in China. The Chinese and Koreans have, hardly surprisingly, many things in common.  They drive on the right but they walk on the right too – odd. Confucianism. Rather surprisingly its influence is probably stronger in Korea. Budhism – the temples etc. are very similar. Manners – they both tend to think that they are looking after their business, it is up to you to look after yours – this can be irritating when, for example, somebody walks out of a shop, phone in hand obviously, and cuts straight across you without looking. Driving is a bit better in Korea – many cars will stop at pedestrian crossings – not taxis obviously.

The guys who stopped me making my mistakes to some extent went against trend.

Manners wise there is one significant difference between the Chinese and the Koreans. If you are out for a walk in the hills the Chinese will acknowledge you in the same way as westerners – a greeting of some kind, a nod or a smile. Not so in Korea. You go wandering in the hills and do the normal things – nothing. Apparently this is because you haven’t been introduced. You don’t know each other’s age, social standing, family attributes etc. This means that you don’t know who is the superior and thus how to behave. Now, in most cases I am going to get the points on the age scale but I hardly dress to impress so ??? So should they bow deeply to me because of my venerable age or ignore me because I am a tosser? We won’t be taking a vote on that one.

Korean public toilets are good (better than China). They are clean, many of the newer ones will have sit down bogs, not just squatters.  Be warned though, in most cases you have to collect the bog paper at the entrance – there is none in the cubicles.

Sitting in the bar, as one does, I kept seeing the top of paragliders! Danyang is the paragliding centre of Korea and what was happening was that tourists were being flown down in tandem paragliders to the “Light aircraft landing strip” – otherwise a car park. This was by the river – eight metres below me.

I tried to get off my fat lazy arse and do some stuff. A local limestone cave. You have probably seen similar. The imaginative names for the stalactite formations came into play again like China but “Rice paddy fields” actually made sense. There were lots of steps and signs saying “Mind your head” – the only things in English. They could have done with a few “Mind your beer gut” signs. At one point I was bent down very low and met a set of steps going down. Turning around my gut to go backwards was not the easiest of tasks. It was only 16 degrees inside the cave but 97% humidity so those of you who know me will know what happened – I  sweated.

At the exit I tried another local drink. Essentially this is fermented milk with nuts added – quite tasty. Rough Guide says try the local stuff straight from the? I did. The bottled stuff is better and not a rip off.  I paid about ten times the price for the “authentic” stuff than the bottled stuff.

Danyang is a mountainous area, Nothing big, maybe 1,200 metres but steep and tree covered. I had a wander up one of the lumps. Jesus it was steep. 500 metre height gain in less than two kilometres. Fortunately for an old fart like me there were many sections with steps and many other sections had solid steel fences to cling on to. You can imagine that I used these extensively both ways.

The problem was that I was going up a ridge that quite often became an arrette i.e. a steep drop on both sides. There were lots of the aforementioned iron steps but in between some proper mountain walking. I had gained about 350 metres easily (because of all the steps) when I came to a rounded boulder sloping on three sides. I could get up it no problem but coming down? I dithered and watched a couple half my age (the first people I had seen) go up easily. But still coming down? (I can hear Guido laughing now). I turned round about 150 or 100 metres from the top.

A very good decision. Blaring away all the way up the climb had been “music” from the place that the boat trips left for a lake tour. Do you really want to hear Abba's “Super Trooper” 400 metres up a mountain?

I got back just in time to catch the bus back into town. The next one was 3 ½ hours later so I would have had to go on a boat ride to try and escape the “music”.

It also meant that I had time to go and look at a temple. Why should I go and look at a temple? I have seen hundreds of them and they all the same – OK very similar. This one is described as the most unusual temple in Korea. Now I have been to no other temples in Korea so who am I to judge?

Why, my usual conceited self. I have been too many many budhist temples. This one makes no pretensions to age – it was founded in 1945. Boy have they been building since. It can now hold 1,000 monks (and feed an extra 1,000 visitors).

Walking in the first thing you notice is hammering and electric grinders – just what you expect from a peaceful budhist community. As you go further in you see lots of buildings with non-standard decorations, smell huge pots fermenting something and hear a fair amount of chanting – I think I saw a little bit of private chanting that I took to be a funeral or, given that there were only about eight non-priest types there, the anniversary of a lady’s death.

The particular sect encourages diligence during the day and contemplation during the evening.  There were lots of monkesses being diligent but, unless the metal bashing lot at the gate were monks, not a lot of diligence from the chaps. Now there’s a surprise.

It is now late September and the colours are starting to turn. It is 36 degrees north but a couple of hundred metres up so perhaps not so surprising. In a couple of weeks it will be beautiful. The rice fields are now nearly golden and the lotus plants are wilting/ I only saw one field being harvested. Late September is a good time to visit but I guess early October would be better. It would still be warm enough for T-shirts and shorts in the day and you would get the proper colours of Autumn and see the harvest being gathered.    

From a slow start I quite liked Danyang.

This is the reason that you go travelling – to look out of your hotel room window and see these pair of socialist success stories in the title of this article. That is my view in Andong. Still only seen one Mcshit, no Substandards or Kick the Fucking Chickens on the whole trip and I have been going over a week now so it is not all bad.

This sounds good but, as a non-meat eater, food has been a bit of a problem. I have found fishy places but they all want you to eat hotpot. This is designed as a meal for at least two (Koreans never eat alone) but, being a pig, I can usually mange the lot but dinner contains a huge amount of fat. By the time I got to the third of these (in Danyang) it got to be a real problem – I had to sit on the floor. The problem with that seating position is that your beer-belly gets scrunched up and there is no space to get the food down! As the meal cost more than my room for the night I was less than ecstatic.

I should explain that I like Korean food in China. The whole Kimchi mentality where they bring several little spicy vegetable dishes once you have ordered something is great – you get your five a day with no effort. However in China it is, inevitably, modified. In true Chinese style you order several dishes. If there is only you, you order two or three dishes so they are quite small. In Korea you order one big dish for two or three of you.

I had been lead to believe that Korea was the most “English hungry” place in the world. Many young people have some idea (and some speak good English) but many people know less English than I know Chinese. What I have learnt is that persistence works – using the stuff in the guide book to explain that I don’t eat meat brings results – last night I got taken to a fish restaurant by the guy from a meat only place. Tonight there was a crabby elderly lady in a mackerel restaurant (the local speciality - salty mackerel, not restaurants) who wasn’t interested in my business. It wasn’t until I went outside and pointed at the fish on the sign that some kids got the message and told her. Both damn good meals. And less than a tenner each including a beer.

I went to this “typical” village today. It is meant to be kept to show the traditional life. When I got there the first thing I saw was a picture of Queenie. She must have been to more countries than me.  Apparently she was at the village with Phil the Greek in 1999.

The village struck me as similar to many villages in rural China (or many other places in South-East Asia) but richer. My thinking is that the wealth has spread out more in Korea than China – lots of the houses had cars and everything looked well maintained. I haven’t looked it up but I suspect that GDP per capita is substantially higher even now that in China. There are many more interesting villages in China and other parts of South-East Asia.

Walking round I saw loads of nuts. The shells looked like sweet chestnuts, the inside looked a bit like conquers or hazel nuts so why were so many on the floor and not collected? Because they tasted horrible! I thought that things like fruits and nuts were supposed to taste nice so that the dumb saps eating them spread the seeds. Clearly I have something wrong here.

At the end of the afternoon they were starting to set up tents and music systems – presumably for some sort of money making venture. Obviously they test the PA system with some local folk music. Yep, you guessed it – Santana.

I didn’t really take to the village (or this town). There is a funny place within walking distance of the tourist bit of town (the rest is a bit of a non-entity and I am writing that opposite DD and BK remember!) that is a combination of a “Folk Museum” and twenty or so old houses that they moved when they built the local damn. I found that much more interesting and informative. A nice walk there and back undoubtedly helped.

Surely I have been in the East long enough not to get surprised by stupid shit by now? Oh no! 

As I approached this area there was a “Love Wall”. This is basically a mesh fence where you can attach a small plastic bottle. In the bottle there is supposed to be a message or saying about the appropriate person or persons. Through the screw top of the bottle and the lid is a three part combination lock (heart shaped, of course) that attaches it to the fence. This goes through the top of the bottle and the lid so you can’t unscrew them without the combination – naturally I tried. So how come about half the bottles had no message inside? Had somebody been along looking for a particular bottle once they knew the combination? Is someone so bored that they try combinations and bottles at random?  Do people buy them and then don’t know what to write to whom? I think we should be told.