Asia on a tandem

Fair enough, I've been lame. We're now in Hanoi, after riding through Korea and having a thoroughly unfortunate time in China.

First, Korea. I really, really liked Korea. It didn't have any wow moment, or fantastic landscapes, or incredible highlights (oh, the food!). Even trying to find some pics to post below I cannot find anything that looks so good as it felt being there. But I look back at it so fondly, we had a great time. For all my love of Japan, sometimes I was a bit frustrated with the cultural difference, especially when I felt I could do with a tiny bit of flexibility or proactivity on their side. In Korea we quickly witnessed the might of the old permed ladies. If you want anything done, or need a quick favour, or didn't find what you wanted on the menu, or can't understand what button you should press, all it's required is a quick ¯_(ツ)_/¯ to a permed lady and she'll make stuff happen. I love them. I want a world parliament made of 100% Korean permed ladies.

The food is amazing, the vegetables are super fresh and delicious. I love the multitude of tiny dishes and the spicy seasoning. Korean countryside people seemed to be always singing or having a merry time in groups, or we just noticed that more coming from Japan where you see a number of lone elderly people pottering about. We mostly slept in love hotels, some of them were truly luxurious for the price.

Our intention was to cycle from Busan to Seoul via the 4 rivers path. It's a whole thing, you buy a stamp passport with a map and ride collecting stamps at checkpoints on the way. The route is almost entirely on cycle paths, mostly in great condition. Cycling paradise, if you like cycling on a segregated path like, forever. This might be heresy, but we don't like cycling paths. The Korean route sounded great but it was implemented by their hidro/river/energy/dam/something government ministry, and for some reason they thought people would be super excited in seeing dams and bridges, instead of people, farms, villages, shops, and restaurants. We were feeling a bit guilty in not enjoying this immense privilege of crossing a country on a cycling road, and we met cyclists that travelled from Europe to Korea just to do that and were loving it (go figure). But well, we met this Korean guy at one more damned dam, and having ridden across the whole country he said 'well, this here is boring, you just see river'. We were SO relieved, it was great to have someone local confirming our impression. He told us to jump on a bus and go to the Northeast coast, pointed out roads we couldn't take and the ones we shouldn't miss, so off we went to ride around barbed wire beaches fending off North Korean defectors. It was a beautiful area, South Korea has great beaches, and we camped at the surfers village. Good times.

From there we crossed to Seoul, a few days hanging out and cleaning the bike, getting all ready to China. We were feeling a bit eery, to be honest.

(I'm ashamed of how shit the pics look, but not gonna bother retouching and making them all nice. You better believe they look great on instagram)