From Mokpo we took an intercity bus to the island of Jindo, just over an hour away. Jindo is Korea's third biggest island yet it still feels a world away from the main land.
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| The river at Jindo Eup |
The bus took us to Jindo Eup, the biggest city in the centre of the island. There doesn't seem to be very much there, a pleasant enough river runs through the middle and there's a dog centre where you can go to look at Jindo dogs which are native to the island.
We'd read a blog that raved about Seomang beach, in the South-West corner of the island. The lesson to be learnt here is to never go somewhere based on one person's blog. Seomang was a smelly fishing village and the beach was average at best. The sun was beginning to set and we were faced with a dilemma; stay in the ugly fishy village or set off walking into the sunset with our heavy bags in search of a better option. We chose the latter and I'm so glad we did. Just east of Seomang we found a pebble beach that was almost entirely isolated. The only access to it was a narrow lane through some woodland. We skinny dipped in the sea, watched the sunset, made a fire, and spent a second night in our pink tent under the stars.
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| Fish on the washing line... as you do! |
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| The 5* Hotel |
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| Sunrise over Jindo Island |
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| Not a bad view to wake up to. |
The next day we were keen to make amends for our failure at Seomang. Back at the bus terminal we chose our next stop at random from a map. Kakyey beach is on the East coast of Jindo island and was much nicer than Seomang. The beach is long, the sand is golden and apart from a couple of fishermen at the far end, we had the beach to ourselves. It was great to enjoy the sun for the day as winter is fast approaching.
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| Kakyey, golden sands at last! |
The funny thing is, the bus driver that took us from Seomang to the bus station in the morning (an hour journey) got off the bus and onto another to drive us from the station to Kakyey (40 minutes north-east)! I suspect there aren't too many bus drivers on Jindo island!
Similar to Oeyeondo island, I feel that Jindo could be so much better if a bit of money were spent making it more tourist friendly (cleaner, more accessible), but on the other hand, it is nice to go to these places knowing that they're totally unspoilt.
