Dacheon Mud Festival

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There is something special and spirit lifting about covering yourself in mud. Diving face first into a big puddle of watery gray matter, only to come up with a huge grin on your face. That was what the Mud Festival at Daechon beach was like. I don't think I have looked forward to being so dirty in my whole life, or have I ever been so dirty in my whole life, maybe in a rainy soccer game, or rubbing dead sea mud on my arms, but even then I did not have mud all over my head and face like I did this weekend. The Mud Festival is one of the biggest events in all of South Korea, and seems to be a mecca for "white folks". I use that term loosely here, because there seemed to be foreigners from all over the world. It seemed that all foreigners that work or serve in Korea had showed up at this little beach town for a weekend of mud, swimming, music, fireworks, soju, beer, laughs, mud coupled with beer, and a sense that this was a weekend for many people to let there hair down from the daily grind and have a good time.
A group of 8 teachers from our school went together and rented a hotel room 2 blocks from the beach. All though hotel rooms here in Korea (or at least cheaper ones) come without beds. You get a bathroom, a sink, floor and a few blankets and pillows. Other than that, really what else do you need. We arrived at the mud festival and quickly saw that this was going to be a blast, there were groups of people walking around with mud covering every inch of there bodies, some to an extent as you didn't know what nationality they were. One guy I saw on the beach, I assumed was a white guy covered entirely in the gray matter, jumped into the ocean only to reveal that he was Indian. Seeing all these folks covered in mud got me real excited to jump full on into the next pool of glop that I came upon. It didn't take long for our group to be just as dirty as the rest of population and just as drunk. We swam in the ocean when we wanted to clean off and when the mud was a callin we came a runnin, only to repeat the process over again. That night we cleaned up and hit the small beach town. There was not a lot to do, so we ate some dinner, grabbed a few cold ones and headed out for the nearest nori bang.
Around 3:30 am Justin and I decided that the group of strangers we met at the nori bang had heard there fill of CCR, so we decided to head back to the hotel, only to get lost for about in hour in what Lt. Dan would have called a worthy rain storm. Soaking wet and coming down from boozed fueled kereoke night we finally reached our hotel, only to find that two of the other teachers had made it back yet, which was quite impressive since it was about 4 in the morning. Well being well traveled and ill prepared, Justin and I forgot to bring an extra set of "dry" clothes to get into. Luckily I had my sleeping bag and there were plenty of blankets to go around that sleeping in the buff wasn't going to be as embarrassing to us or our fellow teachers.
The next morning we woke up with minor hangovers, and somewhat dry clothes, but managed to get into them skillfully enough as to not show the goods to everyone in the room. The 3 hour train ride home was great, I slept most of the time and while I wasn't asleep I got to read, and reflect on what a good and exhausting weekend we all just had.
I am glad that I did not bring my camera, although I wish I had some pictures to bring back from that weekend. So I will not have any pictures to post here. You can search google for pictures from the mud festival. Just type into the google search engine...."Korean Mud Festival 2008", Daechon Mud Festival", Or "Mud Festival South Korea" to get an idea of what it is like. There were tons of photographers there snapping photos every chance they got.
My next adventure is going to be Cambodia. Our school has 2 weeks off at the end of the month (I know, not even working yet and they get two weeks off to romp around asia, not a bad life), so Justin and I are heading off to explore this untamed country.

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Comments

[saam]

FUN! playing in mud and then swimming is the best. safe travels to cambodia.