Saturday, June 05, 2004
Riding into the sunset...
Walking into a sunrise was more like it!
This must've been the weirdest trip that I've had in Korea till now. I guess it all started after the trek I recently went for (with Nikux, Pant, RD & Nishant Tripathi) to Kunwari Pass. Yeah! That's when it started. The penchant for adventure. The insane liking to stretch my limits, to subject my body to enduring pain - till I start feeling I cant take it any more and then I do it just a bit further.
So, I packed my camera, a towel, my Jockey underwear :-), shorts, t-shirt, a full sleeve shirt [Ed: Note the emphasis] and one & a half bottle of Soju - yeah the omnipresent Soju - my favourite alcoholic drink this part of the world. It's only 1000 Won. 40 rupees for a bottle of Vodka!! (I know you're jealous - Muahahaha)
So, where were we off to? Didn't get it, did you? We were off to Homigot. The eastern most point of Korea. The first point to receive electromagnetic waves in the 400nm-700nm range and a little in the infra and ultra region as well.
My past experiences with Korean sunrises, thanks to this stinky habit of blogging, was that they start off at 0400 hours. Two choices were staring right into our faces. Hire a cab to Homigot at about 0300 hours - and shell about 50,000 Wons!! Or, take the last bus at 11:00 PM in the night - and wait at Homigot till morning :-)
Being the adventurous buggers that we are, we chose the most obvious one. Bus #300 took us to the bus terminal. The soju was feeling rather lonely, so we took a pitcher of beer to keep it company and some chips, peanuts and biscuits to munch along.
Oh an btw, we refers to Dhamija, Murugeshan (his guide - Dr. Moo for short) and Moi.
All we knew was Bus #200 would take us to Gur-yeong-po which is very near to Homigot. There were buses to Homigot too but the last one was at 08:00 PM, which we obviously wouldn't get.
Little knowledge is a dangerous thing - they say. We had a hard time figuring out exactly which stop was Gur-yeong-po. An excerpt from the many similar conversations I had with the people in the bus...
Me: This bus, go Homigot?
Pasenger: Yay!
M: Homigot, where?
P: Chang po hwang do dhing dhang bush ko maar do kam sa meeda.
M: Homigot, homigot.
P: Yay!
M: Gur-yeong-po, last stop?
P: Yay!
M: Gur-yeong-po, first stop?
P: Yay!
So, you know the territory we were on :-D
With all the commotion in the back, the bus driver became aware of the fact that there were three buggers who wanted to go to Homigot - the Sunrize Plaza - in the middle of the night! He was kind enough to throw us out of the bus at the last stop, which incidentally happened to be Gur-yeong-po. Ah! Thank god for small mercies.
All he said was "Tuxi! Tuxi! Homigot!" - and we were swamped by a swarm of Tuxi drivers.
Me: Homigot, al ma ae yo? [Ed: Korean for "How much to Homigot?"]
Tuxi Driver: il-man-ee-cheon [12,000 Won]
Well. Thank you, but we'll walk!
And we started walking. Someone on the street told us (wrote down actuall) that Homigot is 7 kms away. We can do it - we thought!
It was beautiful. One loan road. Pitch dark. Flanked by the vast ocean on one side, shimmering with the silver light of the moon. Sometimes vast paddy fields on the other side. Sometimes shops, with huge aquariums full of crabs! Thousand of them! Crammed into one small space. Ready to be eaten fresh!
We spent about an hour on a beach enroute. It was amazing. The moon illuminating the ink blue sky. The vast ocean glimmering in its silver splendour. The waves soflty lapping at our feet. It was romantic.
I guess beaches look much better in the night. Much romantic. When you can really *listen* to the ocean talking to you. Without the noise of the day to disturb.
Dhamija and Dr. Moo preferred confining themselves to one spot enjoying the beer, as I took a stroll down the beach with my Soju. I guess it was probably because they were freezing in their t-shirts. Now you know why I emphasised the full sleeve shirt ;-) And yeah - I caught a crab!! Yes I did. I've even taken a proof-of-capture photograph after bringing it back to my dormitory :-)
So we took off after about an hour.
And we walked.
And walked.
Till we reached a sign board which read Dae-bo (that's the place where Homigot is) - 7 Kms! WHAT?! We were halfway throught and 7 *more* kilometers to walk! So we ended up walking 14 fucking kilometers in the middle of the night to reach Homigot. And we reached just in time. Five minutes before the sunrise started.
It was breathtaking. I'll let the photographs do the talking. Clicked a lot of them. Hope they come out well.
There was a lot of other stuff to see there as well. A lighthouse, a windmill, a museum. None of us was in the position to wait till the museum opened. So we took a cab back till Gur-yeong-pe and all way back on buses to POSTECH to our heavenly rooms!
Definitely the weirdest trip I've ever had!
This must've been the weirdest trip that I've had in Korea till now. I guess it all started after the trek I recently went for (with Nikux, Pant, RD & Nishant Tripathi) to Kunwari Pass. Yeah! That's when it started. The penchant for adventure. The insane liking to stretch my limits, to subject my body to enduring pain - till I start feeling I cant take it any more and then I do it just a bit further.
So, I packed my camera, a towel, my Jockey underwear :-), shorts, t-shirt, a full sleeve shirt [Ed: Note the emphasis] and one & a half bottle of Soju - yeah the omnipresent Soju - my favourite alcoholic drink this part of the world. It's only 1000 Won. 40 rupees for a bottle of Vodka!! (I know you're jealous - Muahahaha)
So, where were we off to? Didn't get it, did you? We were off to Homigot. The eastern most point of Korea. The first point to receive electromagnetic waves in the 400nm-700nm range and a little in the infra and ultra region as well.
My past experiences with Korean sunrises, thanks to this stinky habit of blogging, was that they start off at 0400 hours. Two choices were staring right into our faces. Hire a cab to Homigot at about 0300 hours - and shell about 50,000 Wons!! Or, take the last bus at 11:00 PM in the night - and wait at Homigot till morning :-)
Being the adventurous buggers that we are, we chose the most obvious one. Bus #300 took us to the bus terminal. The soju was feeling rather lonely, so we took a pitcher of beer to keep it company and some chips, peanuts and biscuits to munch along.
Oh an btw, we refers to Dhamija, Murugeshan (his guide - Dr. Moo for short) and Moi.
All we knew was Bus #200 would take us to Gur-yeong-po which is very near to Homigot. There were buses to Homigot too but the last one was at 08:00 PM, which we obviously wouldn't get.
Little knowledge is a dangerous thing - they say. We had a hard time figuring out exactly which stop was Gur-yeong-po. An excerpt from the many similar conversations I had with the people in the bus...
Me: This bus, go Homigot?
Pasenger: Yay!
M: Homigot, where?
P: Chang po hwang do dhing dhang bush ko maar do kam sa meeda.
M: Homigot, homigot.
P: Yay!
M: Gur-yeong-po, last stop?
P: Yay!
M: Gur-yeong-po, first stop?
P: Yay!
So, you know the territory we were on :-D
With all the commotion in the back, the bus driver became aware of the fact that there were three buggers who wanted to go to Homigot - the Sunrize Plaza - in the middle of the night! He was kind enough to throw us out of the bus at the last stop, which incidentally happened to be Gur-yeong-po. Ah! Thank god for small mercies.
All he said was "Tuxi! Tuxi! Homigot!" - and we were swamped by a swarm of Tuxi drivers.
Me: Homigot, al ma ae yo? [Ed: Korean for "How much to Homigot?"]
Tuxi Driver: il-man-ee-cheon [12,000 Won]
Well. Thank you, but we'll walk!
And we started walking. Someone on the street told us (wrote down actuall) that Homigot is 7 kms away. We can do it - we thought!
It was beautiful. One loan road. Pitch dark. Flanked by the vast ocean on one side, shimmering with the silver light of the moon. Sometimes vast paddy fields on the other side. Sometimes shops, with huge aquariums full of crabs! Thousand of them! Crammed into one small space. Ready to be eaten fresh!
We spent about an hour on a beach enroute. It was amazing. The moon illuminating the ink blue sky. The vast ocean glimmering in its silver splendour. The waves soflty lapping at our feet. It was romantic.
I guess beaches look much better in the night. Much romantic. When you can really *listen* to the ocean talking to you. Without the noise of the day to disturb.
Dhamija and Dr. Moo preferred confining themselves to one spot enjoying the beer, as I took a stroll down the beach with my Soju. I guess it was probably because they were freezing in their t-shirts. Now you know why I emphasised the full sleeve shirt ;-) And yeah - I caught a crab!! Yes I did. I've even taken a proof-of-capture photograph after bringing it back to my dormitory :-)
So we took off after about an hour.
And we walked.
And walked.
Till we reached a sign board which read Dae-bo (that's the place where Homigot is) - 7 Kms! WHAT?! We were halfway throught and 7 *more* kilometers to walk! So we ended up walking 14 fucking kilometers in the middle of the night to reach Homigot. And we reached just in time. Five minutes before the sunrise started.
It was breathtaking. I'll let the photographs do the talking. Clicked a lot of them. Hope they come out well.
There was a lot of other stuff to see there as well. A lighthouse, a windmill, a museum. None of us was in the position to wait till the museum opened. So we took a cab back till Gur-yeong-pe and all way back on buses to POSTECH to our heavenly rooms!
Definitely the weirdest trip I've ever had!
