This was going to be another day of
doing only a single leg. I wanted to finish leg 11 in time to head
back to Seosan. With this leg I was going to have completed almost
another 100 kilometres of the trail and I felt that was enough for
now.
I got up and going fairly early. I
headed out by 9 o'clock. I had found the sign for the leg
ending/beginning when I arrived in town the previous day, so I headed
back there for a closer look at what lay ahead for this day. And I
noticed something unusual. There was a section of the trail marked
only with a dotted line. And at either end of the dotted line it
said simply that the trail ended there. Nothing else. There were no
instructions about what to do about it. There was nothing showing an
alternate route. There was nothing except the notation that trail
didn't exist between those two points.
Now at this point, I should offer a
disclaimer. I don't like waiting for things. I don't like waiting
in long lines. I don't like waiting for people, especially if they
are late. I don't like waiting for buses. I would rather be moving
than waiting. So if I think it is possible to get around something
by walking around it rather than, say, waiting for a bus for an
indeterminate period of time, then that's what I will usually do.
This is particularly so if only vague admonitions of what is to come
are offered, and no other information.
Back to the story...
From the start sign/map, I walked and
followed the flags and stickers showing the trail to a bus stop on a
busy street. The stickers then stopped. I took this to mean that
hikers were to take a bus. For some amount of time. In the general
direction of north. For some number of stops. Arriving at some
point farther on past the area on the map marked with the dotted
line. At which point, hikers could continue following the trail.
But...
The bus stop had timetables for six or
seven buses. There was no indication of which one was going to go in
the proper direction. It was therefore unclear when the bus I wanted
was going to be coming. The route was not indicated, and so exactly
which stop a hiker was supposed to get off the bus was unclear. And
I was annoyed and frustrated by that.
Now had I just sat down and waited for
the bus, this day would likely have gone a lot differently, and I
would have a different view of the state of Korean tourism.
But I didn't sit and wait for the bus.
I figured it should be not too big a trick to find a way to walk to
there the trail started again. So off I went.
The first stage of leg 11 was to pass
around the nuclear power plant. Outside the plant's grounds they
have placed a very nice park area.
The park area leads to what is an
abandoned road. But it wasn't really, really abandoned as I saw a
car come down off the road. Great! That means it is passable. So I
got on the road and started following it. There were no signs
warning me off. I passed people on the road, including soldiers,
none of whom told me I couldn't go that way. That told me it was
going to work out. But the road was not in heavy use and was being
reclaimed by nature. And although I cannot show you the end of that
detour, as there were big signs suggesting (in strong terms) that
photography would not be viewed kindly, there was a very
solid-looking fence across the road barring any further progress.
The surrounding hills were overgrown and impassable. This was two or
three kilometres down the road and took a lot of time that I was now
going to have to retrace. Sigh! This was apparently the road that
on the map was indicated with the dotted line.
Luckily, I passed a spot where others
had seemingly made the same error in judgment. There was a path down
to the main road at the bottom of this mountain/hill where I was
following this abandoned road. It wasn't really easy, but did knock
off a couple of kilometres of backtrack and then retrack...
And once again, had I stopped and
waited for a bus at the bus stop I found at the bottom, had I caught
a bus a couple of stops to where I could rejoin the trail past the
abandoned road, had I displayed a little bit of patience, I would
again probably have a different opinion of the state Korean tourism.
But I didn't. Across the road and going up through the valley, I saw
a road where the parallel bicycle route was heading. I thought it
couldn't be that much of a detour, and I decided to follow the
bicycle route instead. About 10 kilometres and 2 hours later, I
finally crossed the trail once again and completed my detour.
I crossed the trail again at a former
temple. It was long gone, but there were a couple of pagodas still
standing at the site, so I stopped in to have a look. They have a
nice view over the valley where it is situated.
But I had gotten a little bit farther
along than I really wanted. I had managed to pass one of the things
I wanted to see. The king I referred to a couple of legs ago, King
Munmu of the underwater tomb, was interred along the coast a little
behind where I rejoined the trail. I was even more annoyed and
frustrated by this point in time, and feeling well behind my schedule
if I was going to make it back home this day. But I wanted to see
that tomb. I thought it would be interesting.
With some misgivings, I backtracked
along the trail to go and have a look. This is the only known
underwater royal tomb in the world. I thought it would have some
fairly interesting interpretive site to go along with a viewing area
for the tomb. But they don't. There is a sign, with very little
information. And there are a bunch of seafood places lining the
road nearby. There was actually more information about King Munmu at
the rock where his dragon queen is supposed to rest.
And all of this led me to these
thoughts about the state of Korean tourism.
There is this part of Korea that South
Korea really needs to start considering. It's called
EVERYTHING-THAT-ISN'T-SEOUL. Seriously. I can get anywhere in Seoul
with relatively little difficulty. There are signs in multiple
languages. There are directions for many things inside subway
stations and kiosks on the street. Often random people on the street
will stop and help an errant visitor. But once you get outside
Seoul, all of that is much diminished. And if you go outside of the
major urban centres, it's punishingly difficult to find out anything
useful.
Here is the sign with the map for legs
10 and 11. It's big. There's lots of space. They even list some of
the attractions in the legs for people walking on them. They give you distances between major spots on the leg, including the distance between the start and the next point which contains the part that is impassable. There's
plenty of space on the sign to put instructions for how to get around the
impassable part of the trail, what bus to take and how far. How hard
would it be? Too hard, apparently. It's much better to let hikers
figure all of that out on their own. (For those that missed it, there is plenty of sarcasm in the preceding paragraph. The following two or three, too, for that matter...)
Now, to be fair, this trail really
isn't one of those premier, feather-in-the-cap trails like the
Appalachian Trail or the Inca Trail or any of a number of trails in
the Himalaya of Nepal. There are likely very few people out there in
the world who brag to their friends, “Whew! I just finished the
Haeparang Trail on the east coast of South Korea. I feel such a
sense of accomplishment.” In fact, I find relatively few Koreans
who even have a clue what this trail is. But it never will be if
this is how they treat the people who try to hike it. And this is
not just a rant about lack of instructions in English. They aren't
even there in Korean.
And what about this underwater tomb?
The sign there proudly proclaims it to be the only one in the world.
(Although this is probably a somewhat rash statement. I don't know
for sure that nobody has hunted the entirety of the world looking for
underwater tombs, but I would suspect that not every single place has
been searched. It would be far more prudent to say it's the only one
known in the world.) That makes it a rather special place. And it
gets a little sign. There was more information about the tomb on a
sign earlier on in the trail than here at the tomb itself. And the
beach is covered in trash, with rickety shops and iffy restaurants
lining the parking lot in front of the tomb. There is no place set
aside for a clear and unobstructed look at the tomb, nor any strong
attempt at an interpretive display.
I know they can do it. I've been in
good museums here in Korea. I've seen some of the good interpretive
displays in Gyeongju, the historical centre of the country. They
know how. And goodness knows Korea loves to promote itself for all
the unique and special things it has. Yet here, on the coast, away
from the easy cities to visit... nothing. Just a pile of rocks
sitting 50 or so metres offshore. And a sign.
If they are going to build a thriving
tourism industry (and I know they want to) that attracts all types of
people, the ones who can afford high-class, high-price tours, the
ones who like history, the ones who like sports and the outdoors, and
the ones who like beer on a beach, they are going to have start
acknowledging that there is more to the country than Seoul.
Otherwise they will remain a backwater in the world of tourism with
no helpful word of mouth buzz.
Okay, my rant is over. On to the rest
of the leg. Once I got past my detour and my disappointment over the
state of what could be treated as a fairly important and interesting
historical site, I headed further up the coast, having regained my
bearings on the trail.
And it was really quite nice, all
things considered. There were parts of the coast itself that were
possibly too rugged. Other parts were apparently owned by hotels and
other private entities and the trail couldn't trespass. (I am just
guessing about that.) So the trail followed the bicycle route. And
the bicycle trail has a dedicated paved route for a lot of this part.
There were more murals and other bits
of artwork along the way.
There was another harbour with fishing
boats lined up waiting to go.
And then I found that I was closer to
the end than I thought. That was very welcome as what was supposed
to be a 19 kilometre trek had turned into more than 30 as a result of
my ill-advised bout of impatience. So I passed over a little hill
(that still felt like a mountain on my by-now rubber legs), past a
couple little family plot farms...
... and down into the very welcome
harbour at the end, Gampo Harbour.
I found the sign marking the dividing
point for legs 11 and 12. Eleven legs had brought me 192.8
kilometres. I'm impressed with myself. (On the other hand, by the count of the GPS tracker app I use on my phone, with all the extras from backtracking, getting lost, and getting impatient and wandering along closed roads, I have walked 215.2 kilometres. I'm doing well.)
There is only one more really
industrial area to go, Pohang, which is the next section after this
current one, the Gyeongju section. But it will be three or four
weeks before I get back down to continue and for the next while it is
only going to be one or two legs per visit as it will be weekends
only for the foreseeable future. I've still made remarkable
progress, at least in my own mind.
