Cramping

By now, I've become something of an expert at free/wild camping, at least in Korea.  The bike path is dotted with parks and rest areas every dozen kilometers or more, and it's usually not a problem to find a relatively flat patch of land where we can set up our tent unobtrusively.  In recent weeks, we've really gotten cocky about it, too: whereas in the past we'd always try to have the tent down before anyone might wander by, now we've moved on to the "meh" method.  After months of free camping in Korea and Japan, we've been spotted dozens of times by joggers, dog walkers and cyclists, and never once have we had anyone hassle us or tell us to move on.  As long as we try to keep mostly out of the way, we get some curious looks and the rare greeting or question, but never anything more.

After 200 kilometers of (mostly) beautiful bike path, we were once again approaching Daegu.  Last time coming through Daegu, we found a free public campsite right under a highway overpass in the city.  It wasn't the best night's sleep, but it beat the alternatives, which at that point were setting up in a baseball diamond or dying on our feet from lack of sleep.  It was a relatively comfortable site, if only because I sleep better when I don't think that every rustle in the night is the Man coming to throw me in the vagrants' jail (which I assume is a thing).  Our enjoyment of the site was slightly diminished in the morning when an old lady suffering from extreme crankypantsedness confronted us, accused of littering, and told us that we had to move along and that the campsite was only open on weekends.  Then she stole the tie to our rainfly, apparently her hunger for cleaning up trash being so insatiable.

Still, since we'd be coming into Daegu on a Friday, we figured this campsite would be a good place to take a rest day for free.  Sure, we'd much rather stay in a motel, especially since our body odor had progressed from "P.U." to "biohazard," but we decided it would be best to save the money and enjoy the free campsite.  Besides, since it was mid-September by this point and the summer holiday was over, surely we'd have the place to ourselves.

Hahahaha no.  Please note our tent being ganged up on by a pack of larger tents.

Every inch of dirt in this campsite -- this cramped, smoggy, noisy campsite located right under a highway overpass -- was occupied by a tent.  But really, "tent" doesn't do it justice:

"Juggernaut," maybe, or "Colossus."  Or some other X-Man.

Our trusty tent has everything that a couple of campers could need: a place to lie down, flaps to keep out animals, a space to put our stuff to keep it dry, and vents to let out farts and such.  These monstrosities not only had the room to sleep a dozen people, but for those dozen people to dance to "Y.M.C.A."  Our fellow campers brought quite a load of stuff, too: coffee tables, bookshelves, chairs, tarps, stoves, actual literal kitchen sinks.  Many of them were engaged in what I'm told is called "day camping," meaning they packed their chandeliers etc. into their cars, drove to the campsite, set up all of their stuff, hung around awhile, then packed up again and left.  I guess I find nature hard to enjoy without my grand piano, too.

And what's camping without a complete lack of mosquitoes?

It took me several minutes to figure out what this man in the official-looking vest was doing.  He drove his motorcycle, which was rigged with some kind of pollution-spewing device, in circles along the pedestrian paths of the campsite and park.  Clouds of gray-blue smoke drifted across the trees and swallowed up children in the playground.  If he wasn't killing mosquitoes, then the only other thing I can think of is that he's a supervillain and that the secret to successful nefarious schemes is just to look like you're authorized.

I really can't stress this enough: this man was driving around a campsite full of children, spewing clouds of pure DEET everywhere he went.  It got in our tents, it got in our eyes and our lungs.  He was apparently supposed to do this.  Oh, and there were still mosquitoes.

We found a spare plot somehow, put up our tent, and tossed and turned through a night of streetlights, truck horns, and bedtimeless children holding some kind of screaming competition.  In the morning, we resolved to try to stick it out for another day, although the idea that we'd get any rest was becoming more ridiculous with each additional tent that sprouted up and surrounded us.  Any of the things that we might like to do to relax (play music, draw pictures, cook) we'd have to do under a microscope, on display for dozens of families and their pets and furniture.  When the cranky old lady from last month reappeared and started nosing around our tent, we decided to move on to a motel afterwards.  Another family claimed our spot before our tent was half down.  We left them to enjoy the mosquitoless, cramped, heavily-trafficked great outdoors.

The only bright spot is that we got to see an artist paint these murals on the overpass columns.  Though I guess he could ahve just been the world's most brazen graffiti artist.

As we continued down the bike path for the next few weeks, we found another increasingly popular twist on camping known as "glamping."  We spotted multiple signs for "Glamping Korea," more than we saw even two months before, and eventually we sighted a few...glampsites?

All the beauty of a cult compound in the great outdoors!

Essentially, glamping (which apparently does exist outside of Buzzfeed, and also is not a real word) seems to consist of renting cabins for the night.  Except these cabins are made of fabric.  Shiny new fabric, sure, with pretty new electric light fixtures, but fabric that will start to show its age considerably faster than more old-fashioned cabin construction materials (like, say, wood).  Presumably inside of these tents there's some sort of glamorous setup, like...a disco ball?  Bearskin rug?  Man, I have no idea.  And neither, presumably, does anyone else in Korea: every glampsite we saw was utterly vacant.  No glampers looking for a glamp-out at the moment (ugh).

We decided that we pitied the poor souls who so thoroughly populated that awful campsite.  Why would anyone choose to camp in conditions that so little resemble actual camping?  If they're going to bring their air conditioners and beds, why not just stay home, where all those things already exist?  And why would someone drive all the way to somewhere outside just to spend the day sitting in a tent and then go home before dark?  Jenn eventually hit on a more compassionate explanation than I could muster: they most likely came from elsewhere in the city of Daegu, and this must be the closest any of them can get to having a backyard.  Apartment life doesn't lend itself to neighborhood barbecues or kids running around freely.  Even if this campsite has none of the benefits of camping that we enjoy every night, it's not a solitary encounter with nature that these people are looking for, but just a little bit of sunshine, even if it's filtered through smog and thousand-dollar tents.

Off Road and Off Track

When we reached Daegu, about 200 kilometers from our departure in Busan, our route took a turn.  The bike path had carried us along the river reliably to this point (except for the mountains), but now we had to find another path; the Nakdonggang wound another 200 kilometers north to Andong dam.  Fortunately, the city of Daegu is well-suited for biking as well, provided of course you don't need to actually go anywhere in the city itself: the river that forms its border on three sides has a very familiar-looking bike path running along familiar-looking tennis courts and abandoned public toilets.  We took a well-deserved break in Daegu for a day, then hit the road again, having to backtrack a few kilometers just to get to the bike path.

Not to get off on too much of a tangent, but such is really the problem with bike paths.  Sure, not having to compete with cars is pretty pimpin', but the fact of the matter is that a bike path can take you to a very limited set of destinations (Point A, Point B, or riding around in circles (not recommended)).  For we who are trying to make actual distance across a country, this means we often have the choice of going wildly out of our way to get on a dedicated bike path or taking a more direct route that could be unsafe for cyclists.  As a touring cyclist, it's pretty maddening that the people who plan these bike paths don't seem to understand that anyone will use their roads for actual transportation rather than weekend recreation.  Hence the Four Major Rivers Project's tendency to have 50 kilometers of beautiful, well-maintained bike path bordered by 30 kilometers of nigh-impassable mountains and forest.  "Surely," these architects declare, their feet up on mahogany tables, "anyone who wants to ride our bike path can ride the good parts, then when they're finished, they can turn around and ride back to their car, which they'll use to actually get around."  Bastards.

Anyway, we skirted Daegu, spending six hours or so dodging lycra-clad racing cyclists and ajimas in visors, masks, and arm covers shuffling down the road.  The old ladies in East Asia sure are careful not to get a single second of sun while they're outside.

By sunset, we were, as usual, not where we expected we would be.  The path stretched for miles in either direction, propped up on a steep green hill with no shoulder on either side.  Below us, along the river, there was a broad, dusty flood plain spotted with ancient, ruined concrete and determined verdant shoots.  Our visibility would be high for this, our last night camping on this adventure, but there seemed to be little alternative, as another city (and thus, even less cover) seemed to be ahead of us.  We decided to take our chances at being spotted from the bike path, banking yet again on the sympathy or apathy of our fellow cyclists.  Laboriously, we rolled our bikes down the hill, crushing meter-high yellow flowers and collecting spiderwebs on our panniers, then sat to drink the beers we'd saved from the last convenience store.

As we waited for the sun to finish coming down, a soft whirring noise in the distance grew louder.  We spotted a colorful shape in the distance, and it headed towards us at a pace almost as lazy as our own.  Eventually we figured out what we were looking at: a man suspended from a parachute with an enormous fan strapped to his back.  I mean, obviously, right?  Man, I dunno how we didn't guess that immediately.  Duh.

The man passed over our heads, then circled around and passed again, waving to us and smiling the smile of a man who's realizing his childhood fantasy (indeed, every boy's childhood fantasy).  We waved back, happy for the man's gleeful greeting, though a bit dismayed that bike touring was clearly not the best way to travel anymore.