One thing I wanted to do without fail while riding in Korea was to go to a hot spring. We hadn't showered in 2 days so we were quite filthy...we packed up and left camp early because I was still sketched out about having a farmer finding us on his property. Everything was soaked from condensation. We headed up into the mountains and soon enough we were in Suanbo. We arrived pretty early and it looked like most places were still closed. I scouted the small town and after some discussion we headed a bit more into town to weigh our hot spring options. We ran into a guy who spoke a little English and we had a broken conversation with him about our intentions. While this was happening, Sally went inside one of the hotels and figured everything out for us. It was only 5000 won a person. Being super burnt, it wasn't very comfortable going into the hot spring but it was still relaxing and nice to be clean again. The cold bath felt really good. After two hours of rest, we were ready to continue going but not before some coffee. I also found a bicycle shop/cafe shop so I went in to buy gloves and a face mask to prevent further sun burns.
We rode out of Suanbo and passed a large rock climbing wall that was quite impressive. After a short ride we reached the Haengchon Crossroads. From here on out was going to be a tough climb up and over a mountain pass. While we were getting ready for the big climb, a man came up to us and started asking us about our riding route. He told us that he is a long distance runner and was looking for routes to run in the future. He told us that we were in the most beautiful part of Korea and I couldn't disagree with him. We were surrounded by beautiful green mountains. During our first of many breaks, we left out our tents and sleeping bags so they could dry out since they were still wet. It didn't take long for them to dry out in the warm heat. We continued the battle up the mountain taking breaks whenever a nice little rest platform appeared. Eventually we made our way to the top of the pass. I ran into an older man from Hong Kong who was doing our same ride with a fold up bicycle. He had the same issues we had with the sometimes difficult route finding...he was staying in hotels so he didn't have to carry much stuff but he mentioned that we had the advantage to stop anywhere to sleep. Each style has it's perks I suppose. After some ice cream and fuel, we headed down the super fun downhill section. We found a restaurant along the highway and we were in need of a proper meal so we stopped here and had beef soup with rice which was quite delicious. The restaurant was quite big, but empty. After a nice satisfying meal we once again got to peddling and passed a small town to get back to riding along the river. We reached our next stamp booth at Mungyeong Buljeong Station, an old train station with old trains and tracks. A group of roadies came by as we were there and they proceeded to take a smoke break...it's quite interesting watching these guys who after clearing their lungs riding proceed to fill it up with smoke.
I think we were quite tired from the tough climb so we were open to staying at a motel. Luckily we found one that looked shady from the outside, but ended up being quite nice and spacious for 80,000 won. We were very impressed with our first stay at a Korean motel. We skipped dinner and went straight to sleep.
