Cycling South Korea Part I:The famous Four Rivers Cycling route

      “You are from America?” the petite, dark haired Korean woman asked Lorenz and me in perfect English as we stood in the central square of Suanbo, gazing in curiosity at the stalls around us—tables set with apple puffs and triangle-shaped, spicy rice-seaweed kimbap; booths with silk paintings and wooden crafts; and in the center, a fountain and stage bustling with dancers dressed in elaborate gold headdresses and purple gowns gathered at the feet.

We nodded, thrilled to speak to someone in our own language after more than a week of struggling with Google Translate, and signs in a strange square boxed script that we could not master.

        “I am Suk,” she paused and added in explanation, “I lived in Canada for five years and learned English there. Welcome to our celebration.” She pointed to the festivities around us. “This is our fall festival. To celebrate all the food from the fields—the harvest. Why don’t you join us?”

At the end of our 1650 mile bike and book tour from Seattle to San Diego last fall, Lorenz and I  decided to take a short vacation from our adventures speaking about our book, Breathtaking. And so we did the logical thing: return to Seattle via a bike tour through South Korea. It’s a beautiful country, with stunning mountains, pristine beaches, and a long and ancient history with many colorful and historic buildings.  Best of all, were the friendly, helpful Korean people, who were delighted to share with us their food, traditions and even, by luck, a local harvest fair.

We began our journey in the capitol city of Seoul, where we wandered the colorful night markets nibbling on grilled meat skewers and glazed fruit sticks; visited the ornate, colorful, steep roofed palaces of the emperors; and rode the famous aerial tram up Namsan mountain to gaze out over a glittering night cityscape of ultra-modern, high rise buildings. When it finally came time to leave, I clambered onto my heavily loaded touring bike in this bustling megalopolis with much trepidation. Who, in their right mind, would want to pedal over thirty miles out of this sprawling city of over ten million people—the sixteenth largest city in the world?

Our special Korean bike map program, Kakao, (Google maps does not work there) had routed us along a canal and then to the Hangang River, right through the heart of the city. I gritted my teeth prepared for hours of slogging through heavy traffic, noise and industry. Was I surprised! Within minutes we were pedaling along a pleasant, wide bike path lined with picnic tables and benches overlooking the river. At the Hangang River, we paused to stop at our first bike stamp station, in a little red English phone booth, and commemorated our official start on the 633 kilometer Seoul to Busan Four Rivers bike route with a round red passport stamp. According to “Korea by Bike” https://www.koreabybike.com/, an indispensable English language website detailing the eleven official bike routes crisscrossing the country, cyclists who collect all the stamps along a route can send in their bicycle passports to the Korean government and receive a medal for their efforts. We were not trying to win any medals, but finding the passport stamping stations along the route was almost as much fun as the journey itself!

The famous Four Rivers cycling route crosses South Korea’s mountainous peninsula from the northwest corner to its southwest tip, traversing the 1,768 foot Ihwa mountain pass in the middle. Our first few days pedaling along the Han and Nakdeong rivers followed wide, comfortable bike paths with bike bridges, tunnels and even bike rest stops, complete with coffee shops and restaurants catering to the many Korean cyclists biking along with us. Around us, steep green mountains plunged into the broad river valleys lined with large towns of modern high rise apartment buildings spreading along the banks.

By the fourth day, the gradual rise of the route along the river suddenly turned upwards steeply as we headed to the central mountain passes that had repeatedly held off Japanese invaders from the south over the centuries. The bike path turned into lovely quiet side roads wending past exquisite waterfalls, bright red painted pagodas and traditional villages. In Suanbo, as we soaked our feet in the open hot springs, we chanced upon a local harvest festival. A group of women, who were practicing the traditional Korean art of painting flowers, even invited me to join them.

Reluctantly, we left the festivities and started the final challenging climb over the pass. Small groups of intrepid Korean cyclists joined us for the famous climb as we slowly wended our way together up along a steep gorge, with overlooks where we could catch our breath and watch the many waterfalls cascading through the lush, thick green, tangled brush and trees, plunging down to the river far below. All of a sudden, the climb was over and we spilled into clusters of laughing, cheering cyclists, posing with their bicycles above their heads, celebrating their achievement. They grinned at us, with our heavily laden bikes, giving us the thumbs up sign and smiles of approval. We smiled back, unable to speak Korean but still able to share the international language of happy cyclists the world round.

That night, we camped in a spectacular campsite, overlooking the red and orange tinted mountains in the Mungyeong Saejae Pass provincial park—the crisp cool nights of fall now turning the leaves brilliant colors. Looking out over the valley from our tent, I breathed the tangy Korean salt soup scent, as Lorenz prepared our simple dinner of noodle soup with vegetables on our cookstove, and smiled contentedly. Tomorrow we would visit the Joseon gates, an enormous fortified wall and gate system that protected Seoul from southern invaders, much like the Great Wall of China. And then? We had pedaled over 300 kilometers and crossed the pass. With only week left of our trip, we could finish the rest of the Four Rivers route and end in Busan. But Korea had beautiful islands and a lush coast too. And, I fervently wanted to visit the tombs of the Silla kings in Gyongui, some seventy kilometers off the bike route.

The next day, we cycled into the enormous sprawling city of Sangiu, tired and hungry from getting lost and pedaling an accidental ten additional kilometers off route.

     “There’s a bus station right around the corner,” I noted to Lorenz as we carried our Korean version of pizza back to our room that night. (No, we had not wanted mayonnaise or hot sauce or eggs on the pizza, we had tried to explain to the Domino’s server using Google Translate).

Lorenz glanced at me as we pedaled past the bus station the next morning. “Do you think we—”

      “Should take a bus–” I grinned. “To the coast and beaches and islands?”

An hour later we were staring in wonder out the window of a luxurious bus, whizzing us along Korea’s ultramodern highway system and on to new adventures.

COMING SOON:

Cycling South Korea Part II: The East Coast Route