Gangwon-do: Chiaksan National Park (치악산국립 공원)

After departing Sokcho we were bound for Pyeongchang, future home of the 2018 Winter Olympics.  Pyeongchang's claim to fame is a large ski resort called Alpensia where the Games will be hosted six years from now (Pyeongchang was finally awarded the games, to much elation, after two unsuccessful bids in the past).  We weren't planning on skiing on this trip (though I have gone twice in Gangwon-do this winter at a great resort called Vivaldi), so we didn't so much as glimpse Alpensia on our long trip down the expressway cutting Southwestwards towards Pyeongchang town itself.

Pyeongchang town's river

Actually I should be clear: we didn't do very much research on Pyeongchang (my draw to it initially was simply the fact that it had been recently awarded the Olympics), and thought that the capital of the county was actually a  city.  We were a little bit surprised when our bus pulled in to a very small station with no buildings insight, by a sign indicating that we'd indeed reached our destination.  We found ourselves in a very small place.  A few minutes later another foreign teacher approached us on the street and informed us we were on the main drag.  Then and there Brent and I decided that we'd stay for a little while longer and see what we could and then make for the city of Wonju in the evening.  We ended up crossing the town's resident river and climbing a hiking path up the hill on the other side.  At the top we were able to take it the whole city which was actually quite a lovely, rustic looking place nestled in the hills.  Korean totem poles, called Jangseung (장승), carved traditionally as village guardians, abounded along the river front.

Gangwon-do: Geojin (거진)

Heading north up the east coast from Sokcho, our next stop was the small town of Geojin.  This was the furthest the the bus would take us, as Geojin is also the last town before civilization begins to quickly peter out on the final stretch to the DMZ, called hyujeonseon (휴전선).  Beyond Geojin lies several museums (Hwajinpo Marine Museum, Hwajinpo History and Security Museum and a DMZ museum) as well as a Unification Observatory and Unification Security Park.  In the end we would never make it to any of these, and while I don't know how grand any of those places were, I have to judge based on Geojin itself that they wouldn't be too large in scale.

Even during the bus ride to the town, the view of the beaches began to change.  High fences began to appear where the sand ended, topped with curling twines of barbed wire--the first visible signs of barriers to keep possible North Korean interlopers out.  A feeling of desolation settled over me as we arrived in town in the mid-afternoon.  The gray sky above probably added to some of that, but there was no doubt that Geojin was a town with a bitter past and a bleak present.  It's streets could hardly be said to buzz with life and a particular quiet seemed permanently clamped down over the whole area.  Rusted barbed wire fencing covered the sides of random buildings, some of them next to the sidewalk of the main street, and a few featured new barbs that had been twisted on recently enough to still maintain their silver gray color.  We wandered down this main street from where the bus had  dropped us and done a u-turn at its final stop and soon veered off towards the water.  A military ship sat at port in the chilly breeze and as I drew my camera to take a picture some young soldiers appeared off to our side behind chain link fencing.  "This is Korean Navy ship," one said in English. "No pictures."

Gangwon-do: Sokcho and Seoraksan (설악산)

Having enjoyed my time spent in the northern prefectures of Honshu island in Japan, I knew that taking a trip to the north-eastern province of South Korea, Gangwon-do, couldn't be a bad idea.  Gangwon-do is bordered on its Eastern side by the East Sea (Sea of Japan), with its long stretches of sandy coast and crystal clear turquoise water and the DMZ (demilitarized zone) to the north.

For the trip, planned to last six days, I met up with my friend Brent in Daegu and proceeded to take an early morning six hour train ride northwards to the seaside town of Jeongdongjin (정동진).  I'd been here before in the summer and it was worth another visit, particularly because we could take a fairly easy bus ride to our first main destination of Sokcho from there.  In the summer I had gone swimming in the brilliant surf at Jeongdongjin beach, though of course all we could do now was look at the waves.  The train station is practically located on the beach, and it's possible to be walking through sand less than a minute after disembarking.

After eating a lunch of fish and walking about the town, we grabbed a bus for the small city of Sokcho further on up the coast.  We didn't arrive until after dark, and so it was only the next morning when we say the jagged, towering mass of the Taebaek ( 태백) mountain range cutting into the sky just beyond the limits of the city, our day's destination, Seoraksan, being the highest among them.  I've seen and climbed plenty of mountains in Asia, some far taller than those of the Taebaek range, but the sheer stony and snow frosted ruggedness of the view from Sokcho felt new to me.  Brent commented that they reminded him of the Rockies, though (perhaps ironically, as a Canadian) I've only seen the Rockies distantly from the window of the Vancouver airport.

Cambodia: The Wedding Party

We are led to our table

Why Not smiles across the table.

On my last day in Siem Reap the owner of Angkor Wonder Hostel, where I was staying, invited me to come to a wedding party which would be on later that night.  That evening I came down to the lobby to find nine other travelers that he had asked to come as well.  He (his name is pronounced and self-spelled "Why Not"--also his favorite English catch phrase) already had tuk-tuk drivers waiting and they sped us off into the night for a fifteen or twenty minute ride to a tented area on the outskirts of the city.

We didn't know at the time who was getting married exactly, nor do I think the other guests expected to see us show up.  However, when we did, we were immediately welcomed warmly and ushered to a table.  Why Not and a server brought us bottles of Angkor beer, and before we could even begin to say thank you, told us to drink lots and whenever we wanted more, just to ask.  "Please enjoy yourselves," he said.  "I want you to feel this is your home."  The first round of food soon came out, an assorted meat platter, salad, fish.  The bride and groom came over to meet us, looking lovely and flush.  I looked around at the people--men in their suits, women with their hair done up, make up and their best dresses, and it occurred to me how special it must be for them to have an opportunity to do themselves up like that.  Most people are just doing what they can to get by each day and don't have the time or necessarily a reason to do anything beyond the necessities.

Cambodia: The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

The Killing Fields are a dismal and raw reminder of the Khmer Rouge's social engineering and rule in Cambodia.  Led by Pol Pot, who envisioned an agrarian-based communist society which devoted its human resources to agricultural output, particularly a massive increase in rice production, the Khmer Rouge carried out a massive genocide mainly between 1975 and 1978.  This was inspired by Pol Pot's ideology of self reliance, similar sounding to the juche philosophy which is idealized by North Korea.  In this new agrarian-based society, individuals educated in any kind of Western or non-agricultural practice, such as the doctors and lawyers in Cambodia at that time, were summarily rounded up and executed at killing fields like Choeung Ek, which I visited outside Phnom Penh.  Many were kept and tortured first in the Tuol Sleng center, now the Genocide museum.

Though today the number killed is debated, most estimates put it somewhere between 1.4 million and 2.2 million, or, as the audio guide we were given at Choeung Ek said: think of your own country, and imagine if one and every five people in it were murdered.