Twenty Minutes Apart
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2007
1
16
18
Trip End
Aug 25, 2008
Daecheon Beach,
Korea Rep.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Only one thing could bring the oegugin hordes down into Chungcheongnam-do; mud and lots of it. The 11th Boryeong mud festival is about to begin, and the pleasure-seekers are commuting in from all over the country, filling buses and clogging expressways.
Last time I took the bus to Daecheon there was no mud festival. The summer had broken over Korea, the unairconed school term seemed insufferably long, and I felt desperately the need to get away from it all, to find a place where I could uncoil my nerves and breath deeply.
Such places still exist; they are being pushed further up mountains or out to sea, but there are still plenty of remote getaways hidden about Korea. Wonsando is one of these.
Daecheon port is a jumble of rusting anchors and bright jumbles of fishnets. The ferry to Wonsando fills with cars and with cyclists, hikers and farmers, and me and my posse of stared-at foreigners.
The ferry ride only lasts twenty minutes; from our beach on Wonsando we can see Daecheon as a strip between cool grey water and the hot grey sky. The noise, the bustle, the glamour and the sleaze, though, are all too far away. We could communicate by firework semaphore, but that's about all. A twenty minute ride but it feels like a completely different world.
There are minbaks on the island, a few of them standing in dilapidated clusters and ranged along the beaches. There are restaurants, too, but they aren't open. Once we solve the question of accom - finding among the more ramshackle options some newer minbaks that have aircon and private bathrooms - we realise this could be a very very hungry weekend. Our token packets of ramyeon aren't going to go very far.
Fortunately we are not completely alone on the beach. A very hospitable group with an endless supply of food notes our plight and plies us with pajon, pork, fish, homemade kimchi, and of course with beer. Our every meal is derived from their leftovers plus our noodles. Their hospitality is magnificent; we eat like kings.
Once our feeders pack up and head back to reality, we are left in possession of the beach. Somewhere far down the other end sunhatted old ladies are mucking about in the mud looking for snacks. The beach is largely ours, however. It has a wonderfully forlorn quality. Years worth of detritus have washed up on the shore, where it has all dried and hardened or rusted and softened. A volleyball net hangs lonely and patiently, the volleyball court is as long as the beach itself. A double corona of lights hums around the pale sun, which is slowly but thoroughly cooking us.
This is exactly what I had been hoping for. A place where there is nothing to do but idle away your every concern. It is a place in which you cannot help but breathe slow and deep. A place of wonderfully empty freedom.
Returning to Daecheon for the mudfest, I wondered if I was coming to the right place. I could see Wonsando just out across the silvery sea - past the barges full of fireworks, the shore full of swimmers, the beach full of umbrellas and the buckets full of black mud. Daecheon was definitely full. That empty Wonsando freedom was calling to me.
Daecheon was full, Daecheon was full, Daecheon was full; the message resounded from every motel or minbak we came to, searching for a place to crash. Was it too late to head for the port? To catch that twenty minute ferry?
My companions had come all the way from Gimhae on the other side of the country. They're both blonde, both named Aimee, and both constantly harassed by seedy old guys who think/hope they're Russian. They had come this far. I couldn't abandon them to the sticky oegugin swarms.
The motel room we finally found stank of cigarettes and looked like it belonged in 1950s Germany, but at least it had a theme and was consistent. We slipped into our most ruinable clothes, and headed for the beach...
There are three areas of the long Daecheon beach strip dedicated to mud festivities. We were lucky to be staying close to the two smaller sites, which meant there was an abundance of mud to besmear ourselves in, and none of the long lines and dense crowds that would clog the main site.
The moment that first paintbrush full of mud slapped against my skin, I knew I was in exactly the right place. An empty beach is not the only place for finding relaxation and freedom. A brush-full of mud is another excellent place to find it. And there was another kind of freedom and contentment to be found in a pool full of slippery merrymakers. Crowds can be just as liberating as solitude.
Beaming white smiles through our thick coatings of mud, we strutted up the strip and plunged into the muddy mayhem.
When I told one of my Korean friends that I was going to the mudfest, she told me that Koreans only went there to photograph the foreigners going crazy. I had already expected this. After all, we were still in Chungnam, one of the most conservative, buttoned-down areas in Korea. All that mud, flying through the air and sloshing underfoot, though, was having a liberating effect. The mud prison was packed with locals and foreigners, old and young, shy and rambunctious. The line for the mud slide was the same. People of all shapes and sizes were clustering under the drenching torrent of the mud water fall.
This was no place for separation, no place for holding back and pondering where you belonged. The mud coated everyone with the same soothing skin, and brought the same foolish smile to every face. Whether you painted, massaged, wrestled, slid or danced; whether you ran the obstacle course or sat and watched the band, you were part of the huge crowd of like-minded revellers, all of whom were finding freedom and joy in a puddle of mud.
Behind the stage and in the sea all that mud was sliding off. When the long lines and thick crowds became stifling, when the mud dried and started to itch, there was the cool of the sea to soothe and refresh. Wonsando sat serene just out beyond the pyro-barges, and no doubt great tides of grey mud were washing up on its shore, covering the paddlers over there and infecting them with the same sense of joy.
The bodies on the beach didn't lose their happiness with their muddy coats though. The festival spirit was just as alive in the water as in the mud. As we dove into crowds all I could hear was laughter and cheersing, and greetings in many languages.
Trying to escape the mud fest with clean skin was a fraught endeavour, especially with two Russians to escort. Muddy paws shot out of the crowds, trying to snare them. Bear hugs encircled them, but somehow we made it past the mud prison and away with only a few skids, streaks and spatters of mud about us.
When the sun went down the festival deflated and was cleaned away. People gravitated to the beach and were met by the tide gravitating towards land. The stage filled again with song and dance, and Wonsando disappeared into the twilight. Daecheon beach was packed with revellers and punctuated by fireworks, but the evening had taken a more mellow turn. When the fireworks exploded magnificently into the sky, most people remained seated on the warm sand. Some had passed out, others had picked up or lit up. Others were just content being with friends new and old, watching fire and light tumble from the sky. The colours reflected the same off every pair of eyes, just as the mud had coloured all skin therapeutic-grey. It was a fitting end to the first magnificent day of the festival.
The following day cloud hung low over the beach and I escorted the Russians to their bus for St. Gimhaesburg. We parted ways and I joined the crowds sweating on finding a ride home. The only question left was where to head next weekend: Wonsando or Daecheon, Wonsando or Daecheon, two very different worlds twenty minutes apart.
This article was written for the August edition of Korea Sun Magazine.
