Monday, 29 September Chungju-Si
We cycle over many bridges and old railway tracks. Beautiful. The park we had chosen to pitch our tent is not suitable. We can't find a spot further along the route either. So we decide to leave the route. After an elderly Korean man working in his garden tells us there is no place to camp and an attempt at the burial mounds fails, we pitch our tent in a gazebo. Wen flags down a man driving down a small road. The man calls someone and gives us the thumbs up. Nice and safe and sheltered.

Tuesday, 30 September, Mungyeong-Si
It is quarter to six and still dark. We hear a few cars stop nearby. We hear women's voices, older women, chatting. Then we hear two of them climbing the steps to our gazebo, sitting down on the bench, their feet against the tent. And chatting! Around six o'clock, the ladies leave and the chatter stops. When we open the tent zip at seven o'clock, we see 15 women picking peppers in the field next to us. So that was the commotion! We make coffee. A small lorry arrives and stops next to us. A man and a woman get out and breakfast for the ladies is taken from the back. When the ladies are eating their noodles, the man comes over to us and says we should join them for dinner. I like the idea and sit down among the old ladies. I am given a bowl of noodles with courgettes. It is chilly and extremely foggy, but gradually the sun breaks through. Lovely autumn weather. Today's trip involves quite a few metres of elevation gain and it is sometimes steep. Before the final climb, we have a yoghurt. Halfway down the descent, we turn onto a small road. We find a flat parking area and ask the people at the house next door if we can pitch our tent there. Two men and a woman walk with us. 'No, not too close to the water, there are snakes there. Even better, under the canopy of the house next door, which is empty. But it's tea time, would you like to join us? We walk with them and are given a short tour of the ovens of the learned, artistic, meditating artist. We walk to the back of the kiln room where the river flows and a beautiful idyllic arbour stands. We have to take off our shoes and enter the Japanese-style living room through the sliding door. On one side of the room, the wall is a kind of display case for ceramic cups and teapots. In front of the windows is a sliding panel of thin wooden slats covered with rice paper. We sit on small cushions on the floor at a low table, a halved tree trunk.The man makes a whole ritual out of making tea, pouring hot water over the teapot and back into the teapot again. He tells us that it is expensive tea, where it is not the taste but the strength that is important. We are given a kind of bapao bun with black bean filling and roasted chestnuts. They ask us all sorts of questions about our trip. Wen asks if he also sells his ceramics. No, says the man, I stopped doing that three years ago. The tea, which is served in very small cups, is getting stronger and stronger. We say we'd better pitch our tent before it gets dark. But we have to wait a moment because more chestnuts are on their way. We show our gratitude. They bow with their hands folded. We are given business cards by the men, learned professors affiliated with the university who studied for 30 years. They are 70 and 71 years old and look at least ten years younger. Quite different from the chattering pepper pickers. We pitch the tent under the canopy of the house and reflect on everything that has happened to us today...