Ride to Haeinsa Temple
Saturday before last, I jumped on the bike and motored along the road to Haeinsa. The first stage of the trip was from Pusan to Kyoungsan. As the sun was blazing hot and humidity was near 100% the entire trip, it was a great relief to arrive at the air conditioned Harley shop in Kyoungsan / Taegu. After I was relieved of a substantial amount of money buying accessories and other things, it was time head back out into the heat.
Prior to leaving, the shop I mentioned that I was planning on going through Taegu and then heading Southwest toward Haeinsa. I was advised that I would melt and or die of heat stroke before I managed to work my way through Taegu and onto Highway 5 toward Haeinsa temple. He suggested that I take an alternate route. I’m glad I took his advise to go backtrack 45 minutes to Chungdo and then head straight west to Changryoung, then North to Koryoung and on to Haeinsa Temple. I would have missed one of the most beautiful sights I have ever personally seen.
I stayed too long at the Harley shop enjoying the air conditioning. Evening was approaching and the heat and humidity were forming into rain clouds. I decided it was time to leave before it got too late or too wet to travel. In my haste to make up lost time, I caught up to a rain storm moving Southwest about 20 minutes after starting out.
I pulled under an overpass and waited about 30 minutes for the rain to stop. After the rain moved on and the roads had dried a bit, I continued on down the road trying to stay behind the rain showers.
The road to Changryoung turned toward the mountains.
The road led through some of the greenest rice paddies on earth and finally up into the mountains.
The mountain roads were getting dark as the sun began to set. As I reached the summit of the mountain, I saw something I had never expected to see. I was totally unprepared for the beauty of the panorama. What I saw literally took my breath away. I wish that photography could do justice to the reality of nature, but this is what my camera caught:
In the last few moments of sunlight, I snapped this picture of me and my bike.
Soon after darkness fell, it began to drizzle and the final hour of the trip to Haeinsa Temple was spent riding in the rain. When I arrived at the town below the temple, I was shocked to find that all of the motels and hotels were full. There was literally no room in any of the places. I eventually solved the room crisis by paying some restaurant owner KRW 30,000 ($30) to sleep on the floor in the unused second story of her restaurant.
Morning came and the rain clouds were gone. I visited the temple for a couple of hours. While wandering around the temple grounds, I was pleased to notice that a sense of iron is not lost on Koreans. I was amused at the message “Protect the environment” that had been painted onto a big rock in a particularly beautiful section of the temple.
Around noon, I began the homeward journey. I took a longer and slower road home.
On the way back, I rode as deep as I had ever been into the Korean countryside.
