Seoulscapade

I know, it does look like I’m sitting in a giant cocktail, but I made certain not to taste it.

It was of many hot tubs at a water park called Water Pia, near the Soruk Mountains on the east coast of Korea. The Sorak Mountains, commonly known to everyone as Soraksan, is where Sunah and I went on a trip in Autumn, 2004. The place is famous as the largest and highest mountain range in Korea. We went there because of that, because Sunah had managed to book one of her company’s condo apartments, which we could use for free, and because it promised to be spectacular, as it was at the peak of the season for leaves turning bright red and orange. Why we should not have gone there is because of this: we arrived there at the peak of the peak season.

We arrived at our condo at night, the one you can see beyond this hot tub at Water Pia. We’d taken a bus from Seoul and then a taxi to the condo at the foot of the Soraksan range. It did not seem too crowded, but that might have been because people were off doing things. The next day, we sought out a taxi to take us on a day tour, a common thing to do and not overly expensive.

Our first stop was this Buddhist temple on the coast, Naksansa, a standard stop for tourists. It was not too crowded either, probably because it was early morning. From here we headed up into the mountains. This was when the hoards of people present at Soraksan began to appear. This is when we struck our first traffic jam.

Much of what we saw was from the window of the taxi, unless we stopped somewhere, not that there were many places to park. It was bumper to bumper up the mountain. But because of the traffic, we frequently came to standstills overlooking magnificent valleys. The driver later dropped us off at the entrance to a hiking path and we were to meet him out the other end of the trail in a couple of hours. At last we could get closer to nature.

It was good to get out of the taxi, but human traffic on the nature hike was sometimes like the traffic on the roads, choked. The scenery was fantastic, with the richest of reds in the leaves. Sometimes it was actually possible to take a picture without a human in it. Often you had to wait your turn to gain vantage points for scenic shots. It was hard to detect tranquility out there amongst nature.

We emerged at the end of the trail and had a welcome rest and some lunch. It was then on to see Baeckdamsa. The driver dropped us at the entrance to the park where the temple is located. We had to take a shuttle bus from here. Because of the hoards the wait time was intolerable. We decided to walk the few kilometers.

I highly recommend the walk. It’s most refreshing, except that if you have already been hiking before it, you should conserve your energy. The few kilometers took longer than expected and much of it was uphill. It was hard going. The scenery was great, oh, yes, great scenery all the way.

The scenery around temple was great, too. The temple itself was like other temples, nothing new of note that I could see. After a look around, we joined the truly massive queue for the shuttle bus back out of the valley. It was dark by the time our turn came. At that point we were completely buggered. The taxi driver, as diligent as ever, was waiting for us when we got back to the entry point, and he took us back to the condo.

The next day, a Sunday, we planned to do some serious hiking, up nearby mountain peaks, and to take in some more of that wonderful scenery. It was around 8 when we left the condo, all packed for the hike, nice and early. We had planned to take a cable car up to the peaks and hike down. It was around 8.15 when we hit a traffic jam in a town a kilometre or two from the entrance to hike trails and the cable car. I took this as a bad sign. Who would have thought we’d hit a traffic jam early on a Sunday morning? With no way out and no where else to go, we stuck with it.

Eventually, we were dropped near a park entrance. You can see what greeted us. It was interesting to note that buses did not stop at the entrance or were not frequent. Taxi drivers, as a consequence, were making huge sums simply ferrying people from the nearby town to the park entrance and back, just a few kilometres. It was a huge day for them, but this was only impressed on me later, as I will soon relate.

Undeterred by the crowds, Sunah lined up for the cable car tickets. She was told the wait for the cable car would be around 8 hours, yes, 8 hours! Needless to say, we did not purchase any tickets. In fact, I’d had enough, and we decided to abandon the whole day of hiking. It was a wise decision. Then we walked for a while back towards the town. People were still coming and going in droves, walking and by taxi, as you can see below.

We began looking out for a taxi. Not many would stop for us. One did near town, however. We got in and Sunah told him to head for the condo. At this the driver drove off, making a fuss about something. He was muttering, smiling, shaking his head, sighing. It went on for too long, and obviously, something was wrong. I asked Sunah about it and she asked the driver. We learned that taxi drivers make all their cash taking people from the town to the park gate and back. It’s a short trip, perhaps worth no more than the flag charge, but if you do one of those every five minutes, that’s a big day. We had just ruined his big day.

Because the driver had to take us out of the area, he would miss out on hours of those lucrative short runs. He even suggested that the whole day was ruined because the traffic jam back into the mountains was so congested that it would not be worth going back. We sympathized with him and gave him a tip. I don’t think it improved his level of happiness.

After dumping all of our hiking gear at the condo, we headed over to Water Pia nearby, with its pool and slides and hot tubes of all kinds. This is where we spent the morning, just soaking and relaxing. Our decision to quit the mountains had been a wise one. After the park, we caught an afternoon bus back to Seoul. We’ll probably go back for more of Soraksan, but we’ll pick the time with more care next time.