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Cape Town fake day

August 8th, 2010

On Tuesday I got up early and headed to the station. I had planned to take the Premium Express train – a “business-class” train that runs between Strand and Cape Town each week-day, complete with complimentary coffee, tea, newspapers and SAPS-on-board. Sadly, it appears to be impossible to buy a single-journey/one-day ticket for this train.

So I found myself buying a perfectly ordinary Metro-plus return ticket on a perfectly ordinary (beautiful) Tuesday morning. I found a comfortable bench on the platform and waited. Other passengers drifted in and found their own benches. Some read books. Some stared into the distance. A community-safety volunteer in reflective vest wandered along the platform. A cleaning-lady was sweeping. The place was close to spotlessly clean already. She picked up a stray sweet paper. A delivery-man arrived with some pies and they chatted about her recent trip to the Transkei. It was so peaceful.

The train arrived and I climbed (well, stepped) aboard. I had a whole carriage to myself for a while, but then one or two others joined me. The trip was quiet and beautiful. I sat at the window and looked out at a beautiful world. Mountains rose in the distance. A dam sparkled in the morning sun. Arum lilies grew beside of the railway line, white on green.

We passed settlements – suburbs? townships? – where houses were being built and extensions done and walls painted. Everywhere building, growing, developing. But pretty rather than commercial. Attractive. Each house with a garden, some just lawn, some with beautiful flowers. Hibiscus flowered next to jasmine. It was so good to see built-up areas with space and light and gardens.

As we came into Cape Town, the mountain rose huge and magnificent above the city bowl. My sister has this concept of ‘fake days’ – days that are so beautiful if they were pictures they’d be rejected because they’d be unrealistic. This was a ‘fake day’ in Cape Town. Seriously, no one city should be allowed to be that pretty. It was exquisite.

I met a friend at the station. They’ve just redone Cape Town station. It’s huge and open with shiny tiles and brand new, easy-to-read signage. It looks good. Most South Africans – or at least those born into or who have now reached the ‘class’ where they can mortgage their lives to buy a car – never use public transport. It makes me a little sad because they miss out on so much. When you’re in a car, even if you’re not driving, you miss out simply because roads tend to have more houses beside them than railway tracks. I had a moment of wondering what would get South Africans back onto public transport. The whole experience from beginning to end was great for me.

Friend and I wandered off into Cape Town. We started at a super sandwich place and then took a wonderful, gentle stroll. We went down to the Artscape to look at the Zebras. The Zebras are part of an exhibition around the theme “not all is black and white”. They’re fascinating and add yet another reason to visit Cape Town city centre.

Later, after various stops around the city, we made our way to Company Gardens. The day was still ridiculously beautiful. The sun streamed into the lush, green gardens as we wandered along the shady paths and squirrels scuttled up trees and flocks of pigeons took off in a flutter of wings. Some seagulls have moved into the gardens and as we watched, muscled their way in on the crumbs people were throwing to the pigeons. I felt a little sorry for the pigeons. The seagulls, in turn, were displaced by a set of amorous Egyptian geese. I was lovely to sit in these quiet, beautiful gardens with the lunchtime crowds settled on the grass enjoying the beautiful weather.

Later, after that friend headed off back to work, I caught a cab to the Waterfront. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the Waterfront. Ultimately, a mall is a mall but after a long stint in a country that doesn’t really have malls in the sense that we do, it’s pleasant and relaxing and just a little luxurious to wander around an upmarket mall full of brand-name stores, the gorgeously rich scents of chocolate and coffee, the glimmer of artificial light off perfectly polished tiles and freshly painted signs and walls. If feels safe, secure and familiar. I had coffee with a friend at a little chocolatier and coffee shop that served the most delicious chocolate eclairs. It was a delightful place. The whole mall was fairly empty on a random Tuesday afternoon. Here I think it was just us and perhaps one other table. We drank coffee with sugar lumps. Luxury comes in many forms; good coffee, delicious sweets and delightful conversation is one of my favourites.

Back at the station, I found my platform, thanks to the friendly and efficient info desk, and hopped onto my train. I travelled through the growing dusk towards Strand Station. There were far more people on the train this time – my carriage was full. It was still beautiful. I got back before dark and headed home to change before going off to have dinner with two more friends.

A beautiful day of sunshine in stupidly pretty city and lots of wonderful time with friends.

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Posted in Adventures, Cape Town, Friends, trains and train stations

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A quiet visit to Grahamstown

July 21st, 2010

It is a dusty, warm winter afternoon as we wandered between the tombstones. I find cemeteries interesting. It’s not a fascination with death; it’s the history. This cemetery was used by the settlers in Grahamstown – those families who climbed off the boats in the 1820s and began a new life in what was to become a thriving educational, judicial and religious centre in the expanded Cape Colony and the young Union of South Africa. There are many important people, like the man who brought the first printing press to Grahamstown. To be honest, though, it is the ordinary people that fascinate me: the parents of Mr so-and-so who came over and lived their last 20 years here, the woman born in Dublin who married a Grahamstown farmer, the family that lost four children before any reached the age of 5. I was struck by just how many young children, infants rest here. There has been lots of talk about infant mortality rates in Africa just lately. We forget just how recently South Africa had the same, terrible problem.

Later, two of us went driving. Grahamstown is a university town and in all the very happy years I spent there, I didn’t explore very much outside of town thanks to lack of car. This time we could. We drove up past the monastery. The monastery wasn’t there when I was at varsity. Or, at least, I didn’t begin hearing about it until much later. It’s a landmark now. The road wound past and kept going, past crystal-blue dams and tall trees, through dips and up hills and over railway tracks, until we reached a point so high we could see for miles and miles. The road was beginning to get worse, so we stopped and got out. Not even the breeze was disturbing the incredible, breath-taking quiet. One of the things I missed so much, longed for so often in Korea was a quiet, empty landscape stretching to the horizon. This landscape stretched forever and forever – rolling hills right to the sea, a glimpse of which was visible in the distance. We could see a house far away to one side and the aloes and dry winter grass and thorn-trees of home. It was a perfect moment. The afternoon was warm and sunny. The sky was so huge and so blue above us. The view stretched all the way to the sea.

On the way back, we chatted – that gentle, rolling conversation of old friends. We went looking for coffee and found everything shut (except Wimpy) on a Sunday afternoon. Grahamstown was so quiet. It felt so familiar and so gentle. Grahamstown always does that to me. The beautiful old buildings – Commem, the Grocotts Building, the Cathedral – as you’re walking up from the bus stop. The University rising at the end of High Street, so reassuringly solid and the same. Getting the bus at Kimberley Hall, where I spent so many, many hours. Some part of me wishes I could live in Grahamstown but opportunities are scarce and chances are slim. That doesn’t mean I won’t visit again and again, particularly for as long as one of my favourite travel-mates is there to share those little moments of gentle exploring.

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Posted in Adventures, South Africa

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Photographs and memories

July 17th, 2010

There is something about photographs. Since I returned, I have thought very little about the experiences in Korea. As in any journey from one culture to another, there has been a sweet honeymoon period and I have given myself over to that heightened appreciation for the beauty and amazingness of the Eastern Cape. Today I plugged in my camera for the first time and discovered I hadn’t even downloaded my pictures from Hongdae and the DMZ.

I duly downloaded them. Looking through the pictures was the strangest (strongest?) experience. I had downloaded a picture in the wrong place. I’d put it in the Hongdae folder but it wasn’t – it was a picture taken in Itaewon. I took it from the window of the restaurant where I had lunch after I went to the DMZ. The window was open and the flags strung across the street were flapping in the breeze. It was a quiet afternoon. It was a Tuesday and not many people were wandering around this tourist/shopping/restaurant area. I suppose it would still be busy by many people’s standards, but it was quiet for Seoul. I find myself, in my mind, pronouncing Seoul in the Korean manner. The photo takes me back. I can taste the Korean beer – not very good, especially after the North Korean beer we’d tried earlier in the day. I had fish and chips. It was the first Western-style fish-and-chips meal I’d had in Korea. The restaurant was called Little Guinness, I remember now. I can feel the breeze through the window and hear the sounds. I sat on the side with the hatch from the kitchen. In the background, beneath the music, I can hear people speaking Korean as they prepare the food. It took a while to arrive – I was hungry – but the day was beautifully hot and clear and it was peaceful there.

There are other pictures, later. I went to a park by a river. By THE river, the Han River (Hangang). There was a man by a tree, in a field of flowers, practicing the saxophone. I’d forgotten about it. I watched him for a while. It was so unusual.

And the craziness of cosmopolitan Hongdae. The Self-Esteem boutique. SPAM restaurant. B-hind coffee shop. The crisp taste of the white wine at the bar where I sat on that last night. A beautiful Italian place. There were dogs in the courtyard outside the window next to my table. Children came and talked to them and fed them. Groups settled down to eat pizza and drink wine. Families sat on the balcony across the courtyard (all the same restaurant) and ate fancy dinners. I can taste the wine as the last sunlight fades and the night settles softly on the city.

I am struck by the tangible sensations evoked by the photographs – the smells, the tastes, the feeling of the wind. I go further back, to the pictures from the Mozambique trip, a good year and a half ago now. They’re just as vivid. The rain on the first morning in Maputo and later, when we stopped and ordered Sangria, and in the wild gardens. How soaked we were when we finally got back and my hat that would never be the same. And Rich and Jonathan going off to find prawns for dinner. Breakfast at that surf-themed place with the bookshop in Tofo after waking up because it was no longer possible to sleep in the heat of the yellow tent. Looking the pictures, I feel the heat, even on this cold winter morning. I had fish and chips in Tofo. The others had gone off exploring but I stayed behind. It was the best fish and chips I’ve ever eaten. I don’t have a picture of that. I wonder why.

There is a picture of Inhambane that New Years Day. The sun is just going down and people are starting to gather on the wall by the water, across the road from where we were staying. My picture is blurred and not very good but still I can hear the music starting and taste the cold Mozambiquan beer as we sat down to watch the people and soak up the atmosphere. It was such a perfect evening.

Days later, in the lush green of Vilankulos, the squid pasta evening. We drank Savannahs there. I’d forgotten that. And that amazing sunset. And the dog. And the rolls. Suddenly I remember those tiny, sweet rolls we bought that morning in Inhambane and ate with those Senor something-or-other chips. That was the day we took the ferry and found that bakery/ice-cream shop. The memories tumble over each other like a dam bursting. The tastes and sounds, the heat and the rain. Being soaking wet on the ferry. Everything comes back in a rush. I feel the need to go even further back, to a long-ago cruise in the Caribbean. The pictures are almost like travelling – they allow you to go back, in your mind, to revisit and experience again. I am primed for travel.

Next to my computer sits a bus ticket. It’s not a long trip, just an overnighter, in fact, but it a little taste, a little glimpse of travel. A little picture, even. I pack my camera back in its little bag, check that I have extra batteries and put it in my daypack. I have a longer journey planned for next week, to one of my favourite cities in the world, but for now this will do nicely – a little journey to a little place that more than any other makes me feel home.

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Posted in Adventures, Ideas, Mozambique, Seoul

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DMZ

June 7th, 2010

On Tuesday, I was up and ready to leave by 8am. Outrageous, I realise, especially for a non-working day, but worth it for what was to come. I was going on a tour to the DMZ. There are two kinds of DMZ tours. The longer, more expensive option takes you right up to the Joint Security Area, where you can actually enter the room where talks are held, through the middle of which runs the border between North and South Korea. The border never used to be enforced in this UN-controlled area until the axe murder incident between some US soldiers and the North Korean army, after which it was enthusiastically insisted upon (mostly by the North, if reports are to be believed).

I opted for the shorter tour, which takes you to the edge of the DMZ. I was picked up at the backpackers at around 8:15am, just as I took the first sip of a destined-to-be-abandoned cup of coffee. I joined the rest of the group in the small bus and we headed off. There were 6 of us on the tour that day, two New Zealanders, an entertaining American (as opposed to the annoying type) and two possibly-Canadians who didn’t say all that much. I was the only woman, apart from the tour-guide, which bothered me not at all, although the guide seemed a little concerned about it.

Our first stop was Imjingak. This is the site of the second-last station on the North-South line and the closest any civilian can get to the North without being part of a specially arranged, guided tour, complete with military checkpoints and permissions. All the way to Imjin, the road followed the line of the Han River (or Hangang – for some reason generally translated as Hangang River). For most of the way, the pretty area of forest beside the road was separated from the river by a line of barbed wire fencing, dotted with guard posts with  armed guards. This line, the guide explained, is the civilian control line. The demilitarized zone stretched for roughly 2km in either direction north and south. On the Southern side of this (and presumably mirrored on the North) is an extremely heavily militarized zone stretching between 5km and 20km (depending on where you are in the country) to the civilian control line in the South.

Imjingak is along the civilian control line. It also has huge symbolic and historical importance. It is here, for example, that ‘freedom bridge‘ stood (stands?). During the Korean War, the bridges that had existed over this river at what, several times, was the front, were destroyed. Once the truce had been signed, the ‘Bridge of Freedom’ was built, theoretically to connect the two Koreas but really for the express purpose of facilitating the exchange of POWs. On that bridge, thousands of Koreans were asked to choose, very finally – they would never get the chance again, whether they wanted to belong to the North or South.

Also at Imjingak are various artefacts from the war, including a locomotive that was shot to pieces as it tried to deliver supplies, as well as a bell dedicated to unification (Peace Bell), a wall dedicated to unification and various other testaments to (some of) the South Korean people’s hope for the reunification of the peninsula. The most poignant, at least for me, was the shrine. The idea and role of ancestors in Korea differs from that in South Africa and is intrinsically tied up with place. So, each Cheosak and New Year, families travel to their ancestral homes to perform the rites that show their respect for or veneration of those who have gone before them. During the Korean war, the front-line between the armies moved back and forth several times and civilian populations scattered before it, trying to avoid the fighting. At the end of the active war, therefore, many were far from their homes. Prior to this conflict, Koreans could move across the peninsula but once the truce was signed, the 38th parallel became a fixed barrier and many Koreans found themselves cut off from their homes and ancestors. This point at Imjingak is the closest they can get and over the years many families began coming here to bow towards their homes and make their sacrifices here. Eventually, the South Korean government built them a shrine – a tiny gesture that is really all the still-technically-at-war nation can do to ease their loss. Just near the shrine is a monument recognising all those nations who fought as part of the UN force on the Southern side. I had a moment of ambivalence about my own country’s involvement.

After half an hour or so, we were all hustled into a larger tour-bus. Because the rest of the places we’d see on the tour are in an area under heavy military control, all small tours are bundled together (with their tour-guides) onto larger buses driven by specially accredited drivers. We were on our way to see the 3rd Infiltration tunnel, also known, according to Wikipedia, as the Third Tunnel of Aggression. Once there, we watched a video that was surprisingly un-anti-DPRK but concertedly, explicitly and emphatically pro-unification. This was followed by a walk through the exhibition hall with our guide – a great chance to ask questions and get a clearer sense of the history.

And then the tunnel. This is one of the bits of the tour I was looking forward to most, perhaps because the infiltration tunnels are less well-known and so less propagandised, perhaps because there is something so classic-war-novel about tunnels underground. Perhaps because allowing people to visit these tunnels is a recognition that hostilities still exist, something that doesn’t seem to happen often in the RoK, particularly in the expat community, where most people dismiss the North as a joke. This tunnel, and the others like it, are clear evidence that the DPRK didn’t just lie down and give up in 1953. It appears that the North Koreans decided in the 1970s that the best way to get around the DMZ was to tunnel under it, all the way to Seoul, so that ground troops could move through the tunnels to back up an air assault (it is assumed). The first tunnel was found in 1974 and the most recent (4th) in 1990. There are probably at least 3 to 5 tunnels as yet undiscovered.

This third tunnel was found in 1978 after a tip-off from a defector. It is estimated that it took roughly 6 years to construct, using dynamite and then (probably) human labour to clear away the rock. It is just over 1600m long, 400m of which are on the South Korean side. In order to get to the tunnel, tourists must don hard-hats and walk down the steep access shaft. The North Koreans are apparently pretty good at tunnels – our guide informed us that they have a subway system up to 100m deep. They must have perfected their skills here – it was a long way down.

Once in the tunnel itself, I found myself wishing – for the first time ever – that I was average Korean height. Scores of Koreans wandered effortlessly past as the Westerners bent and ducked to avoid knocking ourselves out on the solid rock above us. The rock dripped and glistened as we walked. Dynamite holes were ringed in white paint to mark them. On the walls and the roof, if you touch them accidentally, is the black ‘coal’ they were dusted with by the retreating North Korean soldiers, the basis of the North’s later claims that the tunnels were in fact part of a coal-mining operation.

The end of the third tunnel is blocked by three solid concrete walls. Tourists are able to go as far as the Southern side of the first. The space between the first and the second is monitored by CCTV and beyond that second barrier, land-mines protect from any invading force that might successfully overcome the final wall. The area around the first wall is now also monitored by CCTV, too, replacing in the early 2000s, the previous human-plus-dog-plus-canary early warning system.

The tunnel is fascinating, particularly to someone with an interest in history, if only to get a real idea of just how determined the North Koreans were (and possibly still are). It should, however, come with a warning – coming back up to the surface required a hike of nearly half a km up an 11 degree incline.

Our next stop was Dora Observatory – an opportunity to look across the DMZ into North Korean territory, or at least at the Kaesong Industrial complex and the DMZ ‘peace’ villages. You are not allowed to take pictures beyond the ‘photo line’ at the observatory, apparently because they’re scared you will capture on camera images of a South Korean military base in the DMZ, but that makes no sense to perhaps there is another reason. This means that it is impossible (at least without a fairly substantial zoom lens) to capture images of the villages and the border.

The view is awesome, though. We were lucky to be there on a perfectly clear day and so were able to see far across the DMZ, even without the binoculars (500 won per view). The DMZ is, these days, a precious nature preserve in a peninsula where not all that many creatures survive. This provides an even more stark contrast that would exist anyway with the massively deforested hills of the North’s side. On the Southern side, forests blanket the hills with lush green (happily concealing their carpet of deadly landmines). To the North, the hills are bare and huge patches of erosion glaringly scar the landscape. Of course, this area is near the border and it is possible that some of the clearing has been intentional, but there is an awful lot of ground cleared, suggesting that the North’s insatiable and unfulfilled need for energy is a more likely explanation. What little is known of the North suggests that they are anything but a thriving country, struggling to produce sufficient food, power and other goods. A far cry from the North Korea that existed not so long ago, when the North’s standard of living in fact remained higher than that of the South right up until the 1970s and the South’s economic miracle.

From this look-out point, we could also see the two flags, the North’s bigger after they finally won (at least for the moment) the bizarre my-flagpole-is-bigger-than-yours stand-off, building one of the world’s highest. Also visible was the North’s ‘model’ village, often referred to as a ‘fake village’. I was a little sceptical of the story that the North maintains this village that no-one lives in, but looking closely through the binoculars, it does appear that the windows are empty and the buildings are just shells. The South’s own ‘peace village’ has a population of 500, with a maximum of 200 allowed to live in Kaesong-dong, from what I could gather.

The observatory was good but soon it was time to move on to Dorasan station, the last station on the Southern side – or fist station to the North as the information boards and pro-unification propaganda proclaim. This sparkling, modern station complex, complete with customs, cargo storage area and ticket office, has never been used and stands as a symbol of Kim Dae Jung, President’s Sunshine Policy towards North Korea. The train to the North (to Kaesong, not any further) apparently runs past here but this station, situated as it is within the civilian control area, is not uses. At the deserted counter, tourists pick up info pamphlets and use the commemorative stamp to prove they were here or shop at the tiny café. Nothing else happens here and guards walk back and forth, dealing more with tourists than anyone else.

The final stop on the tour was unification village, where we visited a ‘market’ (read: souvenir store) selling products made in the DMZ and North Korea. They sell a variety of goods, from T-shirts and key-rings to roots and herbs grown in the DMZ. They also sell North Korean beer. Once the guide mentioned this, several of the group jumped at the chance to try it. It was very good, actually – rich and refreshing and beating hands-down the South Korea offerings.

And then it was time to return to Seoul. As we drove back, we chatted with the guide about the situation and the history, learning more about the two Koreas. Back in the city, we were dropped in Itaewon and went our separate ways. I had a last lunch in Korea’s foreigner-central and let myself process and think about all that I had seen and learnt in my 4 hour tour to the DMZ.

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Posted in Adventures, Seoul, travelling in Korea

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Travelling solo

May 29th, 2010

A lot of the exploring I’ve done in Korea has been on my own. I’m a fairly flexible and accommodating travel-mate, however, so when others have expressed interest in joining me on particular adventures, I’ve generally been more than happy to let them join and, on more than one occasion, to shift the plans to accommodate their tastes and whims. That really doesn’t bother me. These various trips with different people have given me an opportunity to watch how different people travel and I think it’s taught me something about choosing travel companions. Not that I’ve gotten it right yet but I think I have a better idea of the difficulties and risks of choosing people with whom to share adventures. This is not to say that one should refuse the opportunity to travel when it presents itself. If you’re like me, and willing to be flexible and put up with things, you will probably enjoy it anyway, but it’s a really, really good idea to be fairly explicit about expectations. Or at least for someone to be explicit so that there is one solid set of expectations out there. If everyone is constantly tiptoeing around, worrying about inconveniencing the others, it may end up being a fairly miserable trip for all. And sometimes, just occasionally, it is better to travel alone.

It wasn’t until Sunday that there was finally an opportunity to do some Island-hopping. As a result of bus-related delays and a taxi not able to take us to a ferry in Jindo, we had moved on to Wando for the night (Wando is highly recommended, btw). It was a wild, wet, windy night. I love nights like that. I got soaked, but it was beautiful and coastal. It felt like the sea. In the morning, it was still wet, but seemed – to me at least – less bitter. They said at the ferry terminal that there was a slight chance the ferry wouldn’t be able to come back immediately, but there were many ferries running during the day (every hour) to and from this particular island. My travel companion chose not to take the chance. I don’t know that she really enjoyed the weekend. I know I spent more time worrying about how she was enjoying it than I wanted to. Especially because this was always meant to be a solo expedition for me – a chance to travel and be in motion and experience things more roughly and with more difficulties than usual. I think perhaps I should have trusted my instincts on this one and insisted on doing it alone. Either way, by the time I got on the ferry at 8am on Sunday morning, I was on my own.

It felt so free, standing on that ferry. I love boats. There is a mystery and a wonder about sailing across open ocean or, as in this case, between distant islands. It is particularly free and wonder-filled when the clouds are lying low across the see and rain is falling on your face as you stand at the railing and look out at the blue-grey-green water. Perhaps it is my British heritage and in my veins flows the blood of centuries of sea-faring explorers (by which I mean generically as someone with an historical link to the UK – I have no idea, really). I felt the powerful pull of going, of the freedom of the sea. I was the only foreigner on the ferry and I think the Koreans thought I was a little odd, standing there in my jacket, in the wind and flurrying drizzle, looking out as we passed by islands and ships in the distance.

Once on the island, Cheongsando, I stood for a while and watched the tour-buses drive off the ferry. A lot of the people there were obviously on package tours. I drifted past them, walking past rows of cars, along the little harbour looking around at the little town. Not far along the road, I saw a sign for a beach. I didn’t know where it was or how far away it would be but I decided to take the chance. I walked past an old, falling-down house, windows empty, paint peeling, grey in the grey morning. I passed a school, the sandy playground lying muddy and empty on that Sunday. After a while, I left the buildings behind me and was walking between watery, green rice paddies, terraced up the hills. The road rose up towards forested hills. I passed a man and a woman with a little tractor, working their lands. The sound of a tractor engine broke the silence. The sound was familiar in the foreign fields.

Over the hill, the road dropped down again. I turned off towards the little beach. There was an information board saying that this was the most popular beach on the island. I stood and looked out across the curve of the beach to the buildings on the other side of the green-grey water. The small waves broke on the sand. Another foreigner passed by, covered up in a bright orange raincoat. We didn’t interact at all. It seemed inappropriate to make any sort of contact on this deserted beach in the rain. Beyond the surf were rows of what looked like some sort of fish or seafood-farming activities. A man in a little blue Korean truck drove along the pier and clamoured aboard one of the small boats moored there. In the distance, the orange raincoat took a path up a hill into the forests. I headed in the same direction, not following, just coincidentally taking the same route.

The paved path rose up between the trees. On my right, I could see the sea, stretching out to islands and horizons, through the tree-trunks. It was peaceful. I could hear birds singing.

At the top of the hill I rounded a bend and looked down on a little pebble-beach. Brush and trees stretched down the hill towards it. Around a corner, the forests opened out into ploughed fields. The pebble beach bay was still below me. A brown cow stood under a tree, tethered to a post. It’s huge brown eyes watched me as I followed the path towards it, past it, onwards, always onwards. Around another corner, I came to a freshly ploughed field on my right, all sandy except for the two grassy mounds in the middle of it. Grassy mounds, in this country, are graves. They sat in the middle of a field where the farmer had lovingly ploughed, ever so carefully, around the final resting place of his ancestors. Two black goats chomped on grass in the fenced-off field beyond. I stopped to look down again at the pebble beach. The water was dark blue and crystal clear. A tiny islet rose just beyond the little bay, between the big island I was on and another just a little way across the sea, creating a silhouette line of rocks-in-water.

The path wound back down between the rice paddies. The farmer I had seen earlier was struggling with his little tractor in the mud. Another farmer stopped to help him, leaving his own tractor standing on the path, idling. I edged past and suddenly caught the familiar scent of diesel engine. Strange that island hopping would have lead me to, for the first and only time, a place where I could catch a glimpse of rural Korea; just a glimpse, a last goodbye from Korea.

Back in the little town, I walked past a fish restaurant than smelt fantastic. I thought about stopping for some food but there was no-one around. The door stood open, but no-one was there. I moved on. I passed a modern and very clearly ‘designed’ coast-guard building. Just beyond it, a metre from the edge of the land, was a basketball hoop standing forlornly in the rain. I could picture the island boys playing here, experts at shooting without falling backwards into the sea.

I stopped for coffee at a little shop – that said ‘coffee’. There were people here. A family. They looked bemused when I came in but showed me to a seat, clearly wondering how we would communicate. I asked for coffee. They relaxed a little until they realised they’d have to ask if I wanted cream (milk). They looked relieved when I said no. The coffee was gloriously warm and sweet. I stared through the doorway at the falling rain and surreptitiously watched the family. A mother sat with her baby and chatted to a friend. A little girl walked around with her toddler brother, making sure he didn’t wander out into the rain. The father sat with a friend in front of the TV, clearly engaged in serious conversations (possibly about the Korean game show on the television). I finished my coffee and paid, grateful that I know enough Korean to recognise money numbers. As I left, the little boy, the toddler, came to the door and insisted on showing me, before I could go, a dog’s footprints in the cement outside the door. With no words, he earnestly shared his secret, his serious little eyes demanding that I pay attention.

I thought I should wander back to the ferry dock and find out what time the next ferry left. I had 50 minutes left, so I bought a ticket and took another walk, past houses and rice-paddies next to the water in another direction. I walked along a road between two hills. Next to the road were two more grassy mounds. Next to one was a bunch of flowers.

Below some rocky cliffs, was a manufacturing area of some sort. A boatyard? I stopped and looked for a while but my ferry had arrived and I knew it was time to head back, so I walked back around the little bay. At the ferry, I handed my ticket to an island police-man and then ducked between cars and buses boarding the ferry, and up the stairs. As we left the island, I stood on the top deck of the ferry, looking out at the island and the sea.

There were more people on the ferry this time, so the upper deck was a little crowded. After a while, I went back down to the area below and found a familiar spot along the railing. Fragments of songs drifted through my mind. The smell of the sea mingled with the Korean-food smells from the little restaurant/food (ramen) shop behind me. I was alone with my thoughts and the sea.

Coming back into Wando, we had perfect views of the huge, forested rock in the harbour and the bridge connecting this island to the next one. Bridges and rivers and mountains and sea. My Korea.

I was sad to leave the island and the ferry but the time had come to start the journey home. There were no cabs outside the ferry terminal, so I started walking in the direction of the bus station. The rain was getting heavier. I was very thankful for the built-in-rain-cover on my backpack. After a few long blocks, a taxi picked me up and dropped me off at the bus terminal. I picked up a ticket to Suncheon and grabbed some kimbap for lunch while I waited. Kimbap is rice (bap) rolled around egg, ham, kimchi, radish and whatever else you have lying around, with a layer of seaweed (kim) around the outside. This cylindrical roll is then drizzled with sesame oil and sliced up and eaten with chopsticks. It’s not particularly tasty, but it is conveniently quick, cheap and ubiquitous. I ate it on the bus, watching the world pass by. We drove through rice paddies, barley fields and forested hills. I let my mind wander and watched the scenery, the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s America singing softly in my mind.

It took several hours to reach Suncheon, where I would change buses. The afternoon stayed mostly grey but occasionally we would pass through an area where the clouds were thinner or there were holes in the overcast sky and sunshine drenched small towns and forested hills in summer light. It was beautiful.

Suncheon was small and damp but seemed pleasant enough. A multi-story motel proudly sported the name ‘BMW motel‘, complete with BMW emblem. I wondered what international copyright laws would have to say about that. It doesn’t seem to matter here, as long as the brand is not Korean. I had a few hours to wait before the express bus. I could have taken a slower bus but it would have arrived at a terminal I don’t know, so I opted to wait. In the meantime, I explored the area around the bus terminal. A lot of people feel that a city is just a city. I disagree. I think each place has a sense of place, an identity that is unique. I relish the chance, even for a few hours, to wander around and guess at what that might be. I stopped into Lee’s Sandwich and Coffee for a cappuccino before returning to the bus station and finding a quiet corner to settle down with Douglas Adams.

And then I was back on the bus, travelling through the rapidly descending evening to reach Daegu at around 10pm. As I sat in the cab on the way home, I still felt the lingering sense of freedom and movement. I hadn’t originally intended this trip to be my last real adventure in Korea, but it has turned out that way. In just a few days, I will board a plane and travel home. I’m glad I had the chance, the moment of solitary freedom to glimpse a different side of Korea – a rural, island world, small cities and towns, buses full of people, rivers and bridges and mountains and sea and movement. This is the Korea I carry with me as I prepare to depart for good.

Travelling solo

A lot of the exploring I’ve done in Korea has been on my own. I’m a fairly flexible and accommodating travel-mate, however, so when others have expressed interest in joining me on particular adventures, I’ve generally been more than happy to let them join and, on more than one occasion, to shift the plans to accommodate their tastes and whims. That really doesn’t bother me. These various trips with different people have given me an opportunity to watch how different people travel and I think it’s taught me something about choosing travel companions. Not that I’ve gotten it right yet but I think I have a better idea of the difficulties and risks of choosing people with whom to share adventures. This is not to say that one should refuse the opportunity to travel when it presents itself. If you’re like me, and willing to be flexible and put up with things, you will probably enjoy it anyway, but it’s a really, really good idea to be fairly explicit about expectations. Or at least for someone to be explicit so that there is one solid set of expectations out there. If everyone is constantly tiptoeing around, worrying about inconveniencing the others, it may end up being a fairly miserable trip for all. And sometimes, just occasionally, it is better to travel alone.

It wasn’t until Sunday that there was finally an opportunity to do some Island-hopping. As a result of bus-related delays and a taxi not able to take us to a ferry in Jindo, we had moved on to Wando for the night. It was a wild, wet, windy night. I love nights like that. I got soaked, but it was beautiful and coastal. It felt like the sea. In the morning, it was still wet, but seemed – to me at least – less bitter. They said at the ferry terminal that there was a slight chance the ferry wouldn’t be able to come back immediately, but there were many ferries running during the day (every hour) to and from this particular island. My travel companion chose not to take the chance. I don’t know that she really enjoyed the weekend. I know I spent more time worrying about how she was enjoying it than I wanted to. Especially because this was always meant to be a solo expedition for me – a chance to travel and be in motion and experience things more roughly and with more difficulties than usual. I think perhaps I should have trusted my instincts on this one and insisted on doing it alone. Either way, by the time I got on the ferry at 8am on Sunday morning, I was on my own.

It felt so free, standing on that ferry. I love boats. There is a mystery and a wonder about sailing across open ocean or, as in this case, between distant islands. It is particularly free and wonder-filled when the clouds are lying low across the see and rain is falling on your face as you stand at the railing and look out at the blue-grey-green water. Perhaps it is my British heritage and in my veins flows the blood of centuries of sea-faring explorers (by which I mean generically as someone with an historical link to the UK – I have no idea, really). I felt the powerful pull of going, of the freedom of the sea. I was the only foreigner on the ferry and I think the Koreans thought I was a little odd, standing there in my jacket, in the wind and flurrying drizzle, looking out as we passed by islands and ships in the distance.

Once on the island, Cheongsando, I stood for a while and watched the tour-buses drive off the ferry. A lot of the people there were obviously on package tours. I drifted past them, walking past rows of cars, along the little harbour looking around at the little town. Not far along the road, I saw a sign for a beach. I didn’t know where it was or how far away it would be but I decided to take the chance. I walked past an old, falling-down house, windows empty, paint peeling, grey in the grey morning. I passed a school, the sandy playground lying muddy and empty on that Sunday. After a while, I left the buildings behind me and was walking between watery, green rice paddies, terraced up the hills. The road rose up towards forested hills. I passed a man and a woman with a little tractor, working their lands. The sound of a tractor engine broke the silence. The sound was familiar in the foreign fields.

Over the hill, the road dropped down again. I turned off towards the little beach. There was an information board saying that this was the most popular beach on the island. I stood and looked out across the curve of the beach to the buildings on the other side of the green-grey water. The small waves broke on the sand. Another foreigner passed by, covered up in a bright orange raincoat. We didn’t interact at all. It seemed inappropriate to make any sort of contact on this deserted beach in the rain. Beyond the surf were rows of what looked like some sort of fish or seafood-farming activities. A man in a little blue Korean truck drove along the pier and clamoured aboard one of the small boats moored there. In the distance, the orange raincoat took a path up a hill into the forests. I headed in the same direction, not following, just coincidentally taking the same route.

The paved path rose up between the trees. On my right, I could see the sea, stretching out to islands and horizons, through the tree-trunks. It was peaceful. I could hear birds singing.

At the top of the hill I rounded a bend and looked down on a little pebble-beach. Brush and trees stretched down the hill towards it. Around a corner, the forests opened out into ploughed fields. The pebble beach bay was still below me. A brown cow stood under a tree, tethered to a post. It’s huge brown eyes watched me as I followed the path towards it, past it, onwards, always onwards. Around another corner, I came to a freshly ploughed field on my right, all sandy except for the two grassy mounds in the middle of it. Grassy mounds, in this country, are graves. They sat in the middle of a field where the farmer had lovingly ploughed, ever so carefully, around the final resting place of his ancestors. Two black goats chomped on grass in the fenced-off field beyond. I stopped to look down again at the pebble beach. The water was dark blue and crystal clear. A tiny islet rose just beyond the little bay, between the big island I was on and another just a little way across the sea, creating a silhouette line of rocks-in-water.

The path wound back down between the rice paddies. The farmer I had seen earlier was struggling with his little tractor in the mud. Another farmer stopped to help him, leaving his own tractor standing on the path, idling. I edged past and suddenly caught the familiar scent of diesel engine. Strange that island hopping would have lead me to, for the first and only time, a place where I could catch a glimpse of rural Korea; just a glimpse, a last goodbye from Korea.

Back in the little town, I walked past a fish restaurant than smelt fantastic. I thought about stopping for some food but there was no-one around. The door stood open, but no-one was there. I moved on. I passed a modern and very clearly ‘designed’ coast-guard building. Just beyond it, a metre from the edge of the land, was a basketball hoop standing forlornly in the rain. I could picture the island boys playing here, experts at shooting without falling backwards into the sea.

I stopped for coffee at a little shop – that said ‘coffee’. There were people here. A family. They looked bemused when I came in but showed me to a seat, clearly wondering how we would communicate. I asked for coffee. They relaxed a little until they realised they’d have to ask if I wanted cream (milk). They looked relieved when I said no. The coffee was gloriously warm and sweet. I stared through the doorway at the falling rain and surreptitiously watched the family. A mother sat with her baby and chatted to a friend. A little girl walked around with her toddler brother, making sure he didn’t wander out into the rain. The father sat with a friend in front of the TV, clearly engaged in serious conversations (possibly about the Korean game show on the television). I finished my coffee and paid, grateful that I know enough Korean to recognise money numbers. As I left, the little boy, the toddler, came to the door and insisted on showing me, before I could go, a dog’s footprints in the cement outside the door. With no words, he earnestly shared his secret, his serious little eyes demanding that I pay attention.

I thought I should wander back to the ferry dock and find out what time the next ferry left. I had 50 minutes left, so I bought a ticket and took another walk, past houses and rice-paddies next to the water in another direction. I walked along a road between two hills. Next to the road were two more grassy mounds. Next to one was a bunch of flowers.

Below some rocky cliffs, was a manufacturing area of some sort. A boatyard? I stopped and looked for a while but my ferry had arrived and I knew it was time to head back, so I walked back around the little bay. At the ferry, I handed my ticket to an island police-man and then ducked between cars and buses boarding the ferry, and up the stairs. As we left the island, I stood on the top deck of the ferry, looking out at the island and the sea.

There were more people on the ferry this time, so the upper deck was a little crowded. After a while, I went back down to the area below and found a familiar spot along the railing. Fragments of songs drifted through my mind. The smell of the sea mingled with the Korean-food smells from the little restaurant/food (ramen) shop behind me. I was alone with my thoughts and the sea.

Coming back into Wando, we had perfect views of the huge, forested rock in the harbour and the bridge connecting this island to the next one. Bridges and rivers and mountains and sea. My Korea.

I was sad to leave the island and the ferry but the time had come to start the journey home. There were no cabs outside the ferry terminal, so I started walking in the direction of the bus station. The rain was getting heavier. I was very thankful for the built-in-rain-cover on my backpack. After a few long blocks, a taxi picked me up and dropped me off at the bus terminal. I picked up a ticket to Suncheon and grabbed some kimbap for lunch while I waited. Kimbap is rice (bap) rolled around egg, ham, kimchi, radish and whatever else you have lying around, with a layer of seaweed (kim) around the outside. This cylindrical roll is then drizzled with sesame oil and sliced up and eaten with chopsticks. It’s not particularly tasty, but it is conveniently quick, cheap and ubiquitous. I ate it on the bus, watching the world pass by. We drove through rice paddies, barley fields and forested hills. I let my mind wander and watched the scenery, the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s America singing softly in my mind.

It took several hours to reach Suncheon, where I would change buses. The afternoon stayed mostly grey but occasionally we would pass through an area where the clouds were thinner or there were holes in the overcast sky and sunshine drenched small towns and forested hills in summer light. It was beautiful.

Suncheon was small and damp but seemed pleasant enough. A multi-story motel proudly sported the name ‘BMW motel’, complete with BMW emblem. I wondered what international copyright laws would have to say about that. It doesn’t seem to matter here, as long as the brand is not Korean. I had a few hours to wait before the express bus. I could have taken a slower bus but it would have arrived at a terminal I don’t know, so I opted to wait. In the meantime, I explored the area around the bus terminal. A lot of people feel that a city is just a city. I disagree. I think each place has a sense of place, an identity that is unique. I relish the chance, even for a few hours, to wander around and guess at what that might be. I stopped into Lee’s Sandwich and Coffee for a cappuccino before returning to the bus station and finding a quiet corner to settle down with Douglas Adams.

And then I was back on the bus, travelling through the rapidly descending evening to reach Daegu at around 10pm. As I sat in the cab on the way home, I still felt the lingering sense of freedom and movement. I hadn’t originally intended this trip to be my last real adventure in Korea, but it has turned out that way. In just a few days, I will board a plane and travel home. I’m glad I had the chance, the moment of solitary freedom to glimpse a different side of Korea – a rural, island world, small cities and towns, buses full of people, rivers and bridges and mountains and sea and movement. This is the Korea I carry with me as I prepare to depart for good.

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