Autumn, 2004 – Heavy Traffic On Mountain Highway
Sometimes fortune favours the naïve traveller such as myself who had thought it wouldn’t be so hard to find a place to stay. It just so happened that in 2004, I had boarded and alighted from the same bus at Chuncheon as two ladies who ran a minbak in Anteo Homestay Village, a stone’s throw away from the bus stop in Osaek, a village in the southern part of Seoraksan. ( This was after I had changed from an express bus bound for Chuncheon, taken directly outside Incheon International Airport).
I had to pay 30,000 won per night for one basic room with no attached bathroom ( which was pretty steep, considering such rooms usually went for 20,000 won) but soon realised that room rates tended to balloon just ahead of the surging masses that made their way to Seoraksan during the weekends.
When I took another bus from Naksan into SEORAK –DONG, the traffic jam was even worse. Many passengers, including yours truly, got tired of being stuck on the road, and so opted to walk the last two kilometers. Incidentally, getting out of these places can be just as nerve-wracking and a test of one’s patience as the coaches and cars seem to choose the same hour for their exits from the national parks.
