DAY 4 OF 4-DAY Geoje ROAD TRIP
On my last day I checked out the monorail at the POW camp museum on Geoje Gyeryongsan mountain (not to be confused with the other Gyeryongsan on the mainland) that had been closed on my first day here. After that I tried getting some good views of the suspension bridge on my way out of Geoje.
The POW camp in Geoje was where Chinese and North Korea POWs were kept during the Korean war, ‘home’ to about 300,000! Take a trip; apparently it’s fascinating. Not for me today though because I wanted to ride the monorail to the peak.
The monorail ticket cost about 14,000 won and the ticket sellers might be surprised if you’re only getting a monorail ticket, so I guess the majority of visitors do the full experience. You need to walk through part of the camp museum to get to the monorail station, and you’ll find it in an area full of arcade games, hot dog stands and VR rooms; the entertainment sector! No one else was waiting so I hopped on the next train. It seemed quite new and the carriage holds six people in comfortable seats with car-style seat belts. In this coronavirus era, I was happy to have the car to myself. On the dashboard was a bank of complicated looking switches an lights, and a whole bunch of safety information; I was expecting this to be a quick bumpy ride! …Nope…
The train travels at walking speed through the trees and rocks, sometimes at quite a steep angle. I am happy to report there was no muzak on board. The track looked a lot like an exciting roller coaster rail and it seems like a prime candidate for one of those alpine coaster rides you may have seen on YouTube in the Alps of Europe! Something for the park owners to consider!
I walked from the top station to the peak, which takes about ten minutes. You can look out west to the sea and the islands of what I guess is Tongyeong, and east over Geoje, a pretty great view. The air was a bit hazy with high clouds, but the view was still good. At the peak, you can pretend you’re really hiking and opt to climb the few rocks just off the main wooden walkway! This is definitely a mountain I’d like to hike properly next time I’m here.
Getting down, I had to share the train with a couple. The steep parts of the track were more noticeable now since you were leaning forward in you seats…this is why we had seat belts… Aha!
I was a little sad to leave Geoje as I wanted to stay more. I followed the car navigation to the entrance to Geoje in order to visit a rest stop area which I believed had some kind of exhibition centre dedicated to the suspension bridge-sea tunnel system. Unfortunately, after paying the 5,000 won toll to leave Geoje, the only way to get to this place was to do a u-turn and pay the toll again–the rest stop was actually INSIDE the tolled part of the road… I was stuck though, so just coughed up… I then realised as I was parking that I’d have to follow the twenty minute drive back along the whole toll road, back into Geoje, then pay again to leave Geoje, adding 10,000 won to my toll fees and 40 minutes to my drive to Busan… I was pissed. Anyway … I got me a nice food court rice and fish egg dish (albab, 알밥) and enjoyed the views from the outside seating area back to Geoje. I could see the suspension bridge in the distance but not really close enough for decent photos. I spent a little time seeing if I could get back onto the main road without have to drive back to Geoje…nope!
I got back to Busan safely after my unintended return to Geoje, parked up, received a small refund for returning the car early, then got an earlier KTX back to Seoul. Geoje and Tonyeong are a fantastic couple of islands and I absolutely want to return.
Map of all the places I visited while on Geoje: