Day 16, Leg 14

I forgot to mention that the surly woman at the Havana Motel did do one nice thing yesterday: she gave me the big room for a W5,000 discount: W55,000 instead of the W60,000 she'd originally quoted. The room turned out great despite a few stray hairs here and there: I was able to dry out all of my camping equipment, and I used the extra floor space to fold and roll everything properly so that all the equipment was able to fit in its cylindrical bags and compression harnesses. In the heat of the moment, when you're trying to flee a bad campsite, it's hard to roll your bivy bag properly and stick it in its tight-fitting bag. Same for your sleeping bag and groundsheet.

I'm at the Libertar Pension after a 19K walk turned into a 23K walk when I went off the rails early this morning and had to turn around after belatedly realizing I was already 2 km down the wrong road. I still managed to make it to Libertar way early: I left at 5:50 a.m. and arrived at 12:50 p.m. That's a slow rate of speed (about 3.2 kph), but that's how Strokey McStrokington rolls these days. And arriving anywhere by noonish is almost unheard of for me.

Today's walk was flat. The most eventful thing was the series of biker assholes who insisted on riding their bikes in my pedestrian lane. I finally had enough and gestured angrily at one biker, pointing to the lane he was supposed to be in. He actually obliged me and changed lanes. The other assholes did not. I spent a lot of time wishing I had a gun and pondering why people hate bikers so much.

It was foggy all morning before turning bright and beautiful, but the morning wasn't cold enough for me to wear gloves, so despite missing a glove, I was fine bare-handed. I did start to think about just picking up one of the many tossed-off gloves lining the entire Four Rivers trail, but in the end, I resolved to buy new gloves once I reach Daegu on November 2. There's a chance I might not need them, though: the farther south I go, the warmer the weather gets. Temperature paradox.

Biker assholes aside, today's walk was a good one—a placid contrast with the hilly walk I just did. Tomorrow's walk is a long one: some 32K according to my schedule, but Naver Map is saying 34K. That one takes me by the Chilgok Dam, and I'll be staying at the Yi Motel (이 모텔) for two nights. That'll give me time to once again wash my clothes, including my poor cargo pants, which haven't been washed once yet. The pants are filthy and stinky. 

As with San Gwa Gang Pension, I texted with Libertar many days before I got here. Pensions generally prefer that you reserve a few days in advance. I'm paying W100,000 for tonight's stay, which is cheaper than the W120,000 I've paid in the past. I really like this pension, and I want to come back here in a non-walk context to hang for a few days, cook some food, and just chill. I always stay here for only one night, then I hastily and quietly leave in the early morning. It all feels so rushed, and the ambiance here is one of calm, slow deliberation. Alas. I'll come back here later.

And here's your info/image dump:

today's segment = 19K

a modest burn today

bye, Havana

artwork as I'm leaving town

bridge into mystery

Into the fog we go.

Another lone tree stands guard.

Dewey Webb again

a dilapidated and roped-off shwimteo

My beard obviously wants to grow in one particular direction.

I always imagine thousands of spiders boiling out and eating me if I sit.

view from Gumi Dam

Oh, yeah: Libertar has a smart toilet. I tried the bidet function per Charles's instructions, but the result was less than impressive: when I wiped myself after experiencing the water laser, I was still quite feelthy down there. So I tried a different button—the 쾌변/kwaebyeon setting, which seemed to be for harder-to-clean assholes. It blasted my asshole a lot harder for sure, but while the result was better, it still wasn't perfect.

Here's the thing: when you clean yourself with a traditional bidet and a soapy hand, you can really get into your own pipes and scrub away. The smart toilet merely blasts the surface of the brown spider. It can't get at what lies just beyond, and there's the problem. You see, you're actually dealing with two sphincters down there: there's the brown, barking spider that you see, guarding the exterior and waiting for your girlfriend's tongue to give it a taste, and an inch or so inside—as anyone who's shoved suppositories up their ass knows—there's a whole other sphincter in there—the real one keeping you from leaking shit all over the place. (This page has a diagram clearly labeling the external and internal sphincters. Suppositories must be pushed past the internal sphincter.) Between these two muscles is the bit of shit that you really need to clean. The smart toilet is useless for this task, but your fingers, lubed with soap, can do the trick nicely. 

So I'm not sold on smart toilets. They have their uses, but they need help from Madame Hand and her five lovely assistants. Or you can just go on being Streaky Gonzales.

PHOTO ESSAY

leaving the Havana Motel

Floating Moon(?) Restaurant

Nakdan Bridge

The writing says, "Nakdan Dam Ferry."

I imagine these are paintings based on photos. Nice.

I'm about to swerve left instead of right, which will lead to a 2K detour (4K total once I walk back).

All of this is unfamiliar, but it's early, and I'm too tired to realize this.

electric light, not the sun

Somewhere around here, it's starting to dawn on me that I've gone the wrong way.

snake FUBAR

bones visible

I think that, by now, I've turned around, retraced my steps, and taken the right fork instead of the left.

Back to 283 km to the final destination.

some kind of spec chart

bridge into misty mystery

19K to Gumi Dam's cert center

more animal assholes

Gumi City, Dogae Village

Gumi city limits

18K to the dam

broken and bereft of purpose

Gukto Jongju

280K to final destination; 105K back along the Nakdong to the Andong Dam

cell tower beaming its cancer rays into my head

I was tempted to pick this up and use it.

another lone tree

278K to the goal

another suburbanish house in the farmland

He was originally driving in the walker's lane.

Gukto Jongju

more Dewey Webb

sad sight

All of our ducks (geese?) in a row.

I believe this one is dead, too.

Time to take a break.

breaking right

another damn car on the path

a knocked-over marker

grrrrr

276K to the goal

crossing the bridge as the day brightens

Gumi Dam, 11.2K

A scooter with someone on it for once!

When I imagine hard enough, these become comets. Oil comets.

As noted earlier, I irrationally think spiders will come boiling out if I sit on the couch.

Gorgeous fields. The agriculture captivates me every time I do one of these walks.

church in the distance

Danger Guy is barely visible in this worn-out sign.

Dogae Village's observation tower

cosmos field

as always, Gukto Jongju

I always wish I could skip across to this rest stop, but there's no bridge or tunnel.

a rechargeable scooter, called a "kickboard" (킥보드) in Korean

Some of these makeshift "flowers" spin in the wind.

Shillim Bridge

Chilgok am, 40.1 km; Gumi Dam, 5 km to go

dreams... crushed

Gumi Dam is now 5.1 km away. We're going backward. That, or just don't trust marked distances.

269K to final goal

a marker for the Nakdong River bike path

motherfucker (riding in the pedestrian lane)—one of several such assholes

and another

mystery building across the river

It never ends.

3.7K to the Gumi Dam cert center

A kilometer to go. You can see the dam up ahead.

final approach

crossing the bridge on the dam

tour groups

beautiful shot of reflected clouds on the river

anti-suicide note: "Did you eat? You doing okay? Enjoying the wind? How was today?"

spiral steps up, but probably not for the general public

fish ladder

We're getting close to Libertar Pension.

tucked-away gravesite

admin building for the dam

the tiny townlet with several pensions and a humble convenience store

My pension is this way.

Thar she blows!

the view from inside after I've learned my key code

Normally, pensions are reserved in advance. I do everything via text since I have all the pensions' phone numbers. Wire-transfer payment is easy to do by phone. Some pensions are strict about reserving in advance, but as I learned while walking down the east coast, many pensions are fine with same-day walk-ins. If it's not the crowded tourist season.

nice bathroom

I never use the TV, but I'm always keenly interested in free WiFi.

The pension has a loft that I never use.

nice, soft couch

tools on a roof

I settled in, then went to the convenience store for drinks and a meal. The store doesn't have a wide variety of items, but there's enough there to keep me from starving.

a simple meal of spam and ramyeon

ornithoid visitor

hrrrrrrrgggggghhhh

bidet-spray setup—L to R: stop, clean, bidet, strong beam of water