A story that was started by me but left untold until now. And finally a selection of photos that I took during the trip.

We continued our trip to Busan from Gwangyang (광양) on February 26th. The next destination was Sacheon (사천) which is roughly 70 km by bicycle and included crossing a small island which is connected to the mainland with bridges.

Crossing Namhae Island (남해) was a fatiguing experience. The first half was marked by many hills which made us sweat a lot. After the lunch break everything went more smoothly. But probably during the break I ate something that turned out to compromise our trip.

We arrived in Sacheon in the evening and went to the beach, because there was a Jimjilbang where we would stay for that night. The spa features plenty of pools and some of them are filled with seawater. Also the sleeping area offered mats as usual and even blankets.

After having a snack for dinner we went to our spa and I felt very sleepy around 8 pm. So I fell asleep and had the most sweating experience on the trip. I woke up three hours later and felt severely ill. I knew I had to throw up and gathered all my strength to get up and searching for the nearest bathroom. Unfortunately all signs were in Korean only and didn’t feature any pictograms. Therefore I was wandering through the building and finally found a toilet where I could release myself.

I was freezing all night and the next morning it was clear that I had a food poisoning. So we could not continue our trip as I was too weak to any other kilometre by bike. We decided to skip the last stage and take a bus to Busan.

When we finally arrived at our destination we checked in a hostel, I instantly went to bed and slept for more than 12 hours. After that long rest my physical strength returned and we went outside to explore the city. My appetite still hadn’t returned, so I could only partially enjoy the huge variety of sea food.

Busan is the second largest city in South Korea. With a population of 3.6 million it is the largest city in the south and the harbour brings in visitors from Japan. Somehow the city reminded me of Barcelona, with the beach being so close to the city centre.

We stayed there for two days and then took the bus back to Seoul. It was fascinating that what we travelled over several days by bike, just takes 4 hours by motorized transportation. During the whole trip we travelled 342.2 km by bike and additionally around 100 km by bus to reach Busan within 7 days.

Back in Seoul I checked in another hostel and waited for the sunshine to come.

Complete Trip #

Selected Photos #