My boyfriend suggested to camp on Bijindo during May holidays saying it's one of his must to camp in Korea list. Honestly, I sometimes feel he(He's not Korean btw) knows where to go in Korea than I do.
I had a relaxing lazy time in the island. This place is surely recommendable to camp or spend holidays. The sea was pretty and hiking was not much tiring but pleasant.
I went there with him and other friend of us. All of us work and live in Seoul and Bijindo is far south from here, 4 hrs 10 min. bus ride from Seoul to Tongyeong. We took a bus from Central bus terminal to Tongyeong bus terminal. It was Friday night on May holiday season and the traffic was awful. I was tortured in the bus honestly.
We arrived in Tongyeong and took a taxi to go to our accommodation. Me and my boyfriend used a tourist hostel and our friend stayed in Jjimjilbang. Both of them were near ferry terminal. We wanted to stay near the ferry terminal since our ferry was on 11 a.m.. The place I stayed was small but clean enough.
When I took a ferry in sea, I always had a fun feeding seagulls. Seagulls know people feed them and they follow ferries. If you hold any food, they come down and snatch it. However there were no seagulls following the ferry. I couldn't find any seagulls in port. I still don't understand which ports have seagulls and which don't.
Bijindo is not far from the main land, only 1 hour ferry ride. Some islands in Korea is quite far from the main land, people often need to transfer ferries in other island. However Bijindo is quite easy to go. Me and my boyfriend prefer to stay on deck rather than to stay in cabins. It's hard to do that in winter because it's freezing cold but in May, it was quite pleasant to stay on deck.
Most tourists including us got off at Oihang. I heard that Naehang has only village for residents but no attractions. If you book B&B, hosts usually come out with their car and carry their guests. As a camper, we walked along side the beach to find a proper place to camp. The beach was quite even and there were already bunch of foreigners enjoying the sun.
Beach area and port area are connected by narrow path. On high tide, whole pebble beach area are gone and you can hear the wave comes and hits the beneath of the road. The weather was all fine and calm when we were there. We were quite sure this narrow path will be covered by big wave if any storms come though.
We tried to make a tarp using our tent. It was not a complete tarp set but we scavenged to made it up. We found half rotten rope, broken but long enough wooden sticks and built the tarp. I felt like I become Robinson Crusoe or a friend of Wilson. It was fun.
Me and my boyfriend took a small burner and other small utensils for camping. We made our tent, grilled sausages and drank Makgeolli. I tired to go into the water but it was too cold yet.
The problem was about toilet and shower. I chose to just stay bit dirty, which means no shower(whatever....). The shower place was not available yet and it was locked. The only options was the public toilet which was near the port. I could wash my face and brush my teeth there. By the way, there was no hot water. It's okay to go there during day light but I really didn't want to walk 5 minutes alone at night. There were no people, not many lights like cities, pebble beach was gone because of high tide, I could hear the wave hit the beneath of the road, sea fog was all around. Well, fortunately I'm okay with this kind of small(?) inconvenience during camping.
On the first night of camping, we didn't prepare enough for coldness. I think we woke up at least 4 times. What we learned is 1. just using a personal sleeping bag and becoming cocoon is better, 2. hot pack works really well so if you just have three hot packs inside of sleeping bag, one on feet, one on waist and one for hands, then you will be fine at night. We realized it after we woke up more many times so our first night was big tiring.
There were B&Bs beside the beach so I was bit worried about noise. You know typical Koreans, especially who are in middle age or older than that, they drink and sing. I know Koreans like drinking, singing and dancing. However I really don't want to hear drunken people singing at night til dawn when I camp. Luckily, there was no crazy having fun Koreans, we didn't have to wake up because of the noise.
On the second day, we cooked our breakfast and went to hiking. There is a trail course and many people just visit the island for one day to hike. It's not a big mountain but you can enjoy the sea and mountain at once. You can't see the sea in many places because of trees. There are some view points and you can enjoy the view though. For example, the view from the top of the mountain is not that good, you can only see the trees and skies. I naturally thought the top is the best view point but it didn't work in this mountain at least.
There is a buddhist temple on the trail but we didn't go in. There are bamboo forest only found in southern part of the peninsula. Whenever I see bamboo forests, I recall about bamboo spears which commoners used to revolt against the corrupted rulers or against foreign invaders. I read it in history books "commoners cut bamboo and made spears to fight against regular armies having metal weapons". I have no idea why I was so impressed about it but anyways it remains in my head.
Weather was bit cloudy but wasn't cold. Families spending time on beach, I heard children laughing sometimes yelling. It would be really nice if we brought our own kayak. We decided not to bring it because it's bit heavy and we needed to use only public transportation. Some B&B rent kayaks but we couldn't use it. The owner said people who don't stay in his B&B can just flee away after damaging kayaks. Isn't there a concept of deposit though?
We came back to our tent. Somehow we were the only campers on the beach on that they. It seemed most of people just stay in B&Bs. I heard this is the famous camping spot but maybe we went there too early. I tried to go into the water again, failed again. It was still too cold. Me and my boyfriend chose to take a nap but after I woke up, I found our friend swimming in the sea. I thought she's maybe a polar bear.
The dinner was a bit bummer though. It was Sunday so most of tourists went back to the mainland. We stayed there until Monday so we needed to have dinner in the island. We were bit tired so didn't want to cook by ourselves. There was a place providing fried chicken. I searched the place first, even talked to the owner that I will come back bringing my friends. However when we went there after 15 minutes, he said he thought we would not come back, so he already turned off the cooking oven already. What is this. We tried other seafood restaurant but they were closed too. It was bit frustrating. We cooked our food eventually. It was nice, camping mood dinner but I still didn't like the way those owners handling the situation.
Our ferry coming back to Tongyeong was at noon. We woke up late in the morning, packed our stuff. There were many people fishing on the island. They were kind of early birds so actually I woke up several times in early morning due to their sounds. They were like an early birds catching more worms.
We had sometime left after we came back to Tongyeong. There is a cable car in Mireuk Mountain. You can see the rias coast having many islands, coastlines, ships and yachts coming in and out at the top. There are free luggage storage in the cable car station so we could put our big heavy backpacks and tent there. There are no locks on the storage but staffs check it and usually it's quite safe to leave your luggage one place and roam around in Korea.
It's a nice place to camp. You can enjoy the sea, mountain at once. It's not that far from the mainland. The island's main income source is a tourism so they even have a help center for foreigners(which is only available in peak season. Kind of bummer).
It's bit far from Seoul so spending time on highway or railway is tiring. We went Tongyeong on Friday night and came back to Seoul on Monday. It's almost impossible to go there for one day trip from Seoul and honestly, just one night two days are bit tight if you want a lazy, relaxing camping holidays.
If you have enough time to go there, then it's a quite a pleasant place to camp and enjoy the nature. I recommend this place for campers.
コメント