Like I said before – I planned to camp but wasn’t expecting language barriers, cultural differences and unexpected kindness yet.
Once I put up my tent, a security guard came out, my way, said something and I walked towards him, telling him I don’t speak Korean when he turned away to talk to a guy in a pick-up. Slowly I unpacked when he came back: No. No camping. But I could fill up my water bottles. The pick-up-guy was still there. Coming towards me. Talking to me. Touching my tent. Trying to help me to put it down. I felt uncomfortable. I am female. I am on my own. In the middle of no-where. I take my tent pole out of his hand before he breaks it. I wonder why he wears a cap. Is he trying to shield his face from the CCTV? Why is he sticking around? He points towards his car, says “house”, “no camping” and holds up both hands, all fingers “10”.
10.000 Won for a ride? 10k to his house?! I try to get him to go away, finish packing while he is close – closer than Koreans normally get and watching more than most Koreans do. Did I mention that I felt uncomfortable? Praying to God to get me out of this situation I packed. I wondered where to go. The last houses I passed a while ago, it was 10pm now and there wasn’t even anyone around at dusk. Go into the mountains? There is no-where I could run and no-one I could call. I opt to keep going. He stays, then follows. Shoot. Uncomfortable. Trying not to panic, praying. He stops. Points at one of the open huts that is there in a small park and says camping. Uhm… as if I could get a glimpse of sleep there when he is pointing it out to me. Being a sitting duck in my tent. He points to his car and repeats the “House” and “10”, while I say “bye-bye” and “no”, shaking my head, backing off.
Finally he leaves. I wait. It’s easy for him to just wait somewhere along the way for me. There are not so many options for me to go. Filled with adrenaline I keep going. I am pissed and annoyed. There is no other place to camp but I aim for a restaurant I find on maps.me – unfortunately I don’t find it in real life. So I keep going.
After 10k, I get to a village with two hotels. I walk into the one further down the road – guess who opened the door?! Yeah – the guy from before. It’s about 35 usd to stay in a depressing, kinda clean room with air-con. I get my bike and go to the other hotel. It’s less clean, without air-con, costs 30 usd, similar depressing features and is not run by a man who stressed me out before.
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It took until the next morning, during breakfast, to get a different view on things than feeling t uncomfortable. Last night I was scared off the man. Because I am a woman and I have been brought up, to feel vulnerable, threatened and “have to take care so I stay safe” – because I am a woman.
Korean people tend to be extremely helpful – they would go out of their way to help you. And this was the hotel owner and the security guard trying to help me. Second, it’s not very ‘Korean’ to say directly no to someone and leave them in a tight spot (at least in my experience. Correct me if you think it’s wrong!). So it would be easier to tell someone “Why don’t you stay in a hotel? There is a hotel owner in a pick-up. He can take you, your bike and your stuff to a hotel. It’s a short ride, you can have a shower and a good rest! There is even air-con, that will be much nicer than sleeping in the tent after a long-day of cycling” than “There is no camping here, go away and find another place to stay.”
Therefore, the most likely explanation I can come up with, is the following: The guard saw me pitching my tent. Or maybe even before, when I was hanging around, trying to be obvious about staying. The hotel owner did not show up by chance. The security guard called him to help me (and maybe help the hotel owner to get a paying customer). He knew the next hotel is further away so if the man came, it would be easy and safe for me to get there during the night. As this would be too dangerous or straining for me (as a woman? as a cyclist who had already done his share of cycling for the day?) or I just wouldn’t get lost that way? Who knows…
When I started cycling the hotel owner tried to show me the camping spot (see the “going out of their way to help someone”) so I wouldn’t miss it and get lost in the mountains or have to cycle fast in the night.
Since the guard and the hotel owner spoke a few words of English, we couldn’t discuss all this in detail. And I felt threatened and pushed into a corner by their try to help me.
Considering how much I admire your bravery in cycling through half the world on your own, I will not blame you for taking a careful approach to things this time. You are probably right in your re-assessment the next day, and I guess you never were in real danger, but that’s easy to say the next day, when any potential danger is over.