4 buses, a taxi, a rail bike, and a police car (a day of transportation)

I woke easily to my alarm on vibrate, in part thanks to being not very comfortably situated, sleeping on a thin mat on the floor with a firm foam block for a pillow. I dressed quickly in the locker room downstairs, and briskly walked to the bus terminal as the sun began to rise above the hills. There were a few other people on the 7 am bus to Yeoryang, but soon many of them had gotten off at the several tiny villages tucked away in valleys. The bus wound around mountains, through the changing trees, and then there were three. 

The bus driver spoke to the only man left on the bus, and he came and talked to me. Between him using a few words of English and I using a few words of Korean, I learned that he is a policeman in Yeoryang and I was headed to the railbike in Yeoryang. When we got to Yeoryang, he indicated that this was our stop, so we got off. The sun was just beginning to hit this tiny town tucked deep in the mountains of Gangwan-do, the Northernmost province in South Korea. He gestured for me to follow him, so I did. In a short block, we arrived at the police station. I hesitated a moment, and he gestured again for me to follow him inside. Inside the police station, he sat me down on a bench and he brought me a cup of instant sweet and milky coffee (ubiquitous in Korea) and then started talking to the other police officers. I waited quietly as I sipped my coffee. He brought me a brochure for the rail bike, then continued talking with his coworkers. Not long after I finished my coffee, they gestured for me to follow them outside, and another police officer opened the door to the police car and gestured for me to get in. He got in the front, and we were off, driving through the a mountain valley (in Korea!) in a police car.......

He took me right to the parking lot for the bike rail, let me out of the car (there was no handle inside the back seat!), and pointed the way to the ticket booth. The first set of rail bikes were almost ready to take off, so I quickly bought a ticket and was ushered into the rail bike at the end of the line.

 After reading the rules that one of the attendants had typed into his cell phone in English (I guess he had better book-English than spoken English), and waiting for the long line of rail bikes ahead of me to go, I was off on my rail bike adventure! It took a bit of effort at first, but soon I was zooming through tunnels:

The rails took me along a river and along farm land squeezed into a mountain valley.

The final tunnel was long with some hard peddling, and then I sighted a huge fish, which is actually a cafe, and really used to be a train....

Inside the Fish/Train/Cafe, I had hot chocolate and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Gangwan-do.

I had gotten some basic directions to the bus terminal, so when I was done, I wandered down the alley that I had been shown and came out back on the main street where I had gotten off the bus with the police officer a few hours before. Unfortunately, there was no bus terminal in sight. There was a larger building and a tiny building next to it, and an empty lot. I looked around for a moment and spotted a bus timetable on the tiny building. Inside, there were piles of who knows what for sale, and a woman at a register, from whom I bought a handwritten bus ticket to Jeongseon. Luckily the hourly bus was coming soon, so I went back to the curb and waited in an old chair set outside a shop.

Yeoryang Bus Terminal

Thanks to a series of fortunate events, I made it to Jeongseon in record time, so I pulled out my tourist map that I had gotten in Gangneung and looked for a place to go. The Arirang Folk Village was nearby, so I jumped in a taxi and went. The folk village was narrated by signs in English that told an old folk story as you went around to each building in the village. There were sculptures outside each building that acted out the story as well.

There were many different kinds of buildings including:

I left the folk village via a riverside path, which promptly petered out into a construction zone. I made a long detour around the construction and various buildings, to a bridge, which took me downtown.

The bus terminal was on the exact other side of town, but luckily this was a small town. I walked straight through the market (where I bought a tasty savory pancake and a persimmon) and clear through town, across the river again to the bus terminal, making a complete circle in time to catch the 2 pm bus to Jecheon.

I was in and out of Jecheon in minutes, making a perfect 5 minute connection with the hourly bus to Danyang.

Jechon Bus Terminal 

Danyang greeted me with beautiful mountains set along the upper reaches of Chungju Lake. I walked across a brightly painted bridge to the tourist information booth sitting all by itself at the base of a mountain. They gave me all the information I needed (in English) and helped me get a good rate at a riverside motel.

Back on the other side of the river, I easily found the motel, paid, then walked through the dark halls to my 3rd floor room. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found:

I even had a nice view:

Exhausted by my journey, I ate comforting porridge for dinner and spent the evening relaxing in the comfort (and safety) of my room.



....to be continued......(somehow I managed to pack Jeongseon, Jecheon, and Danyang all in one day)