Before this trip, South Korea was somewhere I really didn’t know much about, other than knowing it had an unfortunate neighbour. But whilst in the USA I had read a magazine article written by a couple who had bikepacked through the northern region. The photos of misty, autumn mornings, simple villages and traffic free riding instantly had me intrigued, and finding out we could jump on a ferry from Fukuoka (in Japan) to Busan (in South Korea) saw us shuffling about our spreadsheet of timelines to squish it in to an already overly optimistic second year – I still didn’t really know what to expect though.

In the end, it wasn’t three weeks of exhaustion or hike-a-bike or huge views or battling the elements the way we became accustomed to in the Americas, but it has been simple, it has been full of curiosity and it has definitely been colourful – In every sense of the word.

Luminous Lights

We arrived in the dark, the ferry docking a couple of hours after sunset, and the initial impression given by the aggressive drivers, multi-lane highways, high-rise fancy apartment blocks and buzzing neon lights on all the buildings of Busan was all a bit overwhelming. Thankfully we were hosted by an amazing WarmShowers host, Chris, and were instantly made to feel at home when we arrived. It was a full house as there were also two German cyclists staying with Chris at the time. They had set off from Germany about a year earlier, and had made it all the way to South Korea – it gave us great hope that we can do the same, in a similar timeframe, heading in the opposite direction. It was a fantastic opportunity to share travelling tales, as well as asking all the questions about what to expect during our last 10 months. Chris had travelled extensively both by bicycle and boat, and he had a wealth of knowledge about where to go and what to do in South Korea – which was exactly what we needed given we had no plan. By the end of our two night stay with Chris, we had a route sorted, a flight out of Seoul to Vietnam booked and an enthusiasm to get out and explore this curious country. Our wander around the lit up streets of Busan allowed us to experience the most colourful city we’ve seen yet on this trip – multi-story businesses attract the attention of passers by with huge lit up signage, the bigger the better; the bridges were illuminated in multi-coloured strobe lights; the beach front had a flower display covering the floor in the brightest hues of yellow and pink; there was already a Christmas display on show, where lights created 3D festive figures (and also not so festive figures – unless a Christmas Whale is now a thing!?) It was mesmerising. It felt like we were walking about in slow motion, as our over-stimulated brains struggled to take it all in.

On leaving Busan we would join the popular cycle route known as ‘the Four Rivers’ for a couple of days. This route is mainly on cruisey cycleways and passes through an initial sprawl of large towns, all with huge white towering blocks of flats, one after another all in a row with very few other houses around. It gave the towns a slightly odd feel. We also couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the blocks of flats were empty as though there simply weren’t enough people to fill them. They all still had amazing infrastructure and parks around them, so we made the most of this and pushed the limits of urban camping to the extreme, with one night after another camping on hard, cold, concrete ground (so grateful for our free standing tent in these situations. In fact, I think we only used the tent pegs once or twice in all our time in South Korea!)

Fascinating Food

The nature of riding along the cycleways of the Four Rivers means that you often miss the towns where you can resupply on food, so we wanted to make sure we had some basic provisions before we left the urban sprawl. We head to one convenice store after another, amazed by how a good 50% of each store was just instant noodles. Is this genuinely all anyone eats!?! Finding any kind of fresh fruit or vegetable in the convenience stores was pretty much impossible – but they did have a great selection of dried, flattened squid and octopus to suck on if that’s your kind of thing. They also had lots of meats that weren’t really meats – lots of gelatinous substances resembling the colour of meat that had been reconstructed into a familiar meat like shapes, such as a sausage or a chicken leg, and vacuum packed. Safe to say we left all the convenience stores empty handed.

It took us a little while to find a supermarket, and then it took us even longer to walk the aisles trying to determine what everything was. It all looked very weird – colourful if you will. There were lots of shellfish and tiny fish – again all vacuum packed – as well as vegetables we didn’t recognise and mushrooms that looked like they might kill you. We even saw bracken for sale as an edible vegetable – we were convinced bracken was toxic to humans and contained cyanide(?), but obviously not if everyone is eating it here – don’t take our word for it though and start munching through the overgrowth on the local footpaths at home, maybe they prepare it in some special kind of way here to extract the toxins, who knows!? We also found that a lot of the fruit and veg was sold in huge pre-packaged quantities – we couldn’t buy just one onion, it would have to be a whole bag, or a bunch of twenty bananas, not just four. We did eventually learn that you could hunt down a member of staff and ask them to split the pre-packaged quantities into smaller sizes, but it was a bit of a faff. As long distance cyclists I feel like half our time is spent buying food, in fact, we should really rename this trip our world tour of supermarket shopping. It’s just the nature of needing to eat all the time, but not having much space to carry it in, or much desire to add even more weight to the bikes with unnecessary food carrying, but I already know I’ll be pleased to not see the inside of another supermarket for a few years when I get home! At least in the Korean supermarkets we could have a good chuckle at the weird and wonderful things they sold – extra large tin of lavea anyone!?!

Beautiful Beaches

Our initial few days on the Four Rivers cycleway had been easy breezy from a cycling perspective, but you can’t help but feel that you are missing out on experiencing the true nature of the country. The cycleways tend to skirt around towns and villages, so you see them from a distance but don’t really get to immerse yourself in them. So we peeled off the cycleway and headed West. We found ourselves on a mishmash of roads – some lovely and quiet, some busy and full of obnoxious drivers in fancy cars with blacked out windows. We wiggled our way towards the South West coast, where we had heard about rolling countryside, simple rural villages and beautiful beaches. It didn’t disappoint. The rural villages were the total opposite of the bustling city of Busan, or the larger towns we had already passed through. They were sleepy and calm, full of elderly communities tending the fields by hand. Every small space was used for growing vegetables, mainly the ingredients for kimchi – cabbages, onions, carrots and chillis. I mean, hands down South Korea would win the world prize cabbage growing contest, some of the ones we saw were huge. Small village homes all had a stack of traditional stone pots tidily sitting outside, the kimchi fermenting under the heavy lids. The fieldworkers sheltered from the all day sunlight in shared community pavilions in the village centres, and stared as we rode by. It was peaceful.

Before we knew it, we could see the sea, and the beaches were as lovely as the stories said. Steep forested hillsides fell into bright blue waters, the waves calm. It all looked very tropical, but the temperatures were definitely autumnal. Too brisk for a swim. We enjoyed a night sleeping on the sand, appreciating the orange-y pinky dusky sunset. But the sad reality was that the sand around our tent was more plastic than sand, micro plastics infiltrating everything, with larger plastic debris mixed in, so much waste from the fishing industry as well as the usual toothbrush and rogue sandal, all carried in by the tide. It was a peaceful night though listening to the waves lapping the shore.

Cruisey Cycleways

After our stint by the sea, we peeled off Northwards, again rejoining the amazing network of cycleways. There are so many cycleways in South Korea that you can knit them together with only short stints on the busy roads between them. Each cycleway has incredible infrastructure of benches, pavillions, shelters, drinking water and toilets which are all well kept and clean – A dream for dirtbag cyclists like us! It meant we had hour-upon-hour of simple, stress-free riding, where there was no traffic to avoid, very few junctions to navigate and we could just let our minds wander. Each cycleway also seemed to have its own unique character. Some were pristine smooth cyclepaths through the underbelly of cities and towns, running alongside rivers used by everyone from commuters to daytime daudlers; others were decorated with thousands of colourful pinwheel windmills and just when you thought you’d seen the last fo them, they would restart again all bright and cheery; some felt like they were mainly used by local farmers transporting cabbage in their small carts, the path splattered with mud flung from muddy wheels; others felt like they were an integral part of the incredibly well equipped, well used and well loved outdoor gyms that most communities have, as though cycling to the outdoor gym was the warm up.

Another Autumn

We were also lucky enough to have timed our trip to South Korea perfectly to coincide with the turning seasons, from autumn to winter. So we experienced even more autumn – what’s not to love. The colours of the leaves were incredible. The diversity of the trees meant that no matter how small the copse, the trees would be an array of traffic light colours. After the mists of each morning had cleared, the sun perpetually felt low in the sky, meaning it always seemed to have that golden glow to it, making the autumn colours of the grasses shine golden with their seed heads shimmering. It felt like living inside an Autumnal wreath, and it reminded me just why Autumn is my favourite season.

But the further North we travelled, the deeper into winter we fell. The blue skies became more and more filled with feathery, high, cirrus clouds, and we knew this indicated a change in weather was on its way. Almost overnight, the temperatures plummeted, the last of the leaves shook from the trees, the Northerly winds arrived and with them came the Siberian cold that saw us wrapping up in all our layers, even whilst riding. We were back to zipping our sleeping bags together at night, the warmth of each other keeping us cosy as the temperature dropped into minus figures. Getting out of the sleeping bags in the morning became a struggle and packing away the wet tent with frozen fingers was painful, but the thick frozen mist that covered everything in the mornings made it all look pretty magical.

Crazy for Coffee

The freezing temperatures saw us warming up most mornings in one of the many, many coffee shops of South Korea. I’ve never quite known a country love coffee so much – literally on every street corner there is a coffee shop. A village may not have a shop for groceries, but it is likely to have a coffee shop. Everyone walks around with a coffee in hand, or is walking to or from a coffee shop. The cities in particular had the biggest coffees I’ve ever seen – Yep, even bigger than the American ones. We quickly realised that most of these coffee shops only sold coffee (maybe tea), but rarely food, although you might be lucky and find a biscuit. As two hungry cyclists, in the early days of our time in South Korea we would often see the sign for coffee and quickly cycle over excited by the idea of an early lunch, only to disappointingly remember that in most cases coffee literally means coffee, nothing else. We did eventually learn, but not before developing quite the coffee habit that we are only just shaking off.

Cycling Community

At least our coffee habit meant we felt a little bit closer to the local cycling community. South Korea has a great cycling community, cycling is huge here. And there is no wonder really when the cycling infrastructure is so good. The early mornings, evenings and weekends would see the cycleways fill up with cyclists – A whole mish-mash of people really, but usually whizzing along on fancy bikes, very much looking the part in smart lycra with faces hidden from the cold and sun, buffs pulled up, glasses on. They were all so friendly and supportive, waving with shouts of hello to us. We envied them as they cruised passed us, usually effortlessly spinning their legs on super lightweight bikes at quite the speed, fuelled only by the free coffee given out by many of the bike shops and a gel or two – What fun! It reminded us of the times we have previously spent riding fast and light – Although the reality (for me at least) is that it wasn’t ever really that fast, and we were definitely never as cool as the South Koreans we saw, who hid behind the anonymity provided by buffs and cycling glasses as though they were some kind of cycling royalty in hiding.

Curious Cameras

The thing is maybe they were cycling royalty, or maybe they were just wanting to hide their faces from the CCTV that was absolutely everywhere in South Korea. No matter how remote the cycleway or rural village it would have CCTV cameras covering every inch of it. Most of the cameras seemed to be around public infrastructure, rather than private property, so they mainly seem to be public cameras. It felt a bit strange at first to know that our every move was being watched, but we didn’t really know by who and we weren’t doing anything wrong, so we figured that some poor guy, bored to tears watching it all might be able to get out his popcorn and enjoy some entertainment from watching us ride along and sit on a bench for a snack before riding on again – Riviting stuff! It did get us thinking though. It made us wonder whether all the lovely infrastructure here is still lovely because of the amount of CCTV, and whether its presence deterred youths from scribbling all over it with a marker pen, pissing in the corner and smashing a bottle or two for fun, the way they would do in the UK – but somehow it didn’t really feel like it was the CCTV that was causing this. As we cycled along through community after community, you could see the pride and responsibility that the locals themselves took in looking after the facilities they had in their local area, so much so that each pavillion seemed to have its own sweeping brush inside, and we frequently saw them being tidied and cleaned by locals, even when they were already spotless. So perhaps it is this community accountability which prevails and ensures this stuff is looked after, either way, it was a delight to be able to enjoy it all.

Our three weeks in Korea seemed to fly by, and before we knew it we were on the final stretch, approaching Seoul as the sun set through dusky skies, where we would spend two days making our way across the city towards Incheon Airport, and navigate our way through the bike box saga* We had enjoyed our time in South Korea, and I’m so pleased I stumbled upon that magazine article all those months ago, inspiring us to head out and see this colourful country for ourselves.

*For those who are not familiar with the bike box saga, it goes something like this…

Bikes must be in a box in order to be able to fly with them (why they can’t just be wheeled on is anyone’s guess!). So a day or so before we fly we have to find two huge cardboard boxes in order to fit the bikes into. Usually finding the boxes at bike shops is our best bet. So we cycle or walk around the bike shops spread all over the city in order to find two boxes that are the right size to fit our bikes (with them being big, heavy, mountain bikes this is a little more tricky). Thankfully in this instance finding the boxes was made much easier by the help of a friendly bike shop owner who called around lots of other bike shops for us and found us a second bike box as he only had one. Then when you have the boxes you have to somehow transport the big heavy boxes back to where we are staying – either carrying them and walking or in this instance Ted cycled about 12km across the city with it strapped to his shoulder! Then we have to dismantle the bikes, take the luggage off, pack the bikes in to the boxes. We then have to find a bag/suitcase to put our luggage in and pack all the luggage into the bag. Uuufff! Then you have to find a taxi that is big enough to take two bike boxes, two people, two carry on bags and a checked in bag, in a world where most taxis are saloon cars – oh and make sure that the cost of it isn’t going to break the bank. That’s all before you get to the airport, where you then have to manoeuvre all this luggage around the airport building, and unpack the bike again so it can be checked by security and the staff who have never seen or ridden a bike like ours before will insist that the tyres need deflating, even though we’ve already done it and they won’t deflate any more without the tyre sealant leaking out everywhere, so you have a good few minutes of trying to explain this to them, then you finally get out the roll of gaffa-tape you bought in advance and wrap up the box, send it off into oversized baggage and put all your trust in the universe that the bikes and luggage will all arrive where they are meant to, undamaged. The whole thing is pretty darn stressful but thankfully each time we do it, it seems to get a little easier, and spoiler – everything safely arrived in Vietnam. Thank heavens!