We got to the island in just under an hour and set off to find our pension. Lucy commented, "This is the kind of room people get murdered in." That kinda sums it up, but it had an incredible view. It was right on the waterfront so we could see the entire beach.
We sat on our little deck and ate some dried fruit before we took a walk.
Bijindo is basically two mountains connected by a bank of sand. There's a tiny road that bridges the two. One one side is the beach and on the other is a whole lot of rocks. It's incredible, really. Hardly anyone lives on the island so we explored in a matter of minutes.
We watched some boys try to skimboard and made friends with some kids playing in the sand before we found a cute little hostel/cafe with a cute little woman who gave us homemade tea. We enjoyed looking at the exotic colours and all the tea jars. She gave us bits of each to try before we decided on an orange peel one.
After a few refills we got up to pay and discovered that it cost 20,000won. What. the. heck!? So we decided it gave us immortal powers and if we ever die our relatives can sue her.
We lay on the rocks for a bit after that and then went up to prepare ourselves for a light hike to watch the sunset up one of the mountains.
'Light hike' is the understatement of the century. There were two paths to choose at the base of the mountain, so of course we chose the 1.7km one over the 3.4km path. That's just common sense. Except that we soon discovered the shorter path took us practically vertically up the mountain. We were basically scouring cliffs and hoisting ourselves up rock faces (slight exaggeration).
At one point I looked up and saw some light through the trees. We pushed ourselves because we believed we had seen the end. It was so close. Once we made it to the clearing all our hopes were cruelly dashed when we read a sign, "1km to summit".
We forged on upwards and then upwards, and even further until we reached to top! We climbed the viewing platform and nearly cried when we went to look at the sunset and all we could see were trees! What a debacle!
We watched through the branches anyway and ate our dinner before we set off back down, taking the long route this time. We practically ran along the path, trying to catch as much of the last light as possible.
About half way, and in the thick of the bush the light ran out and we could no longer see our hands in front of us, let alone the path. Out came our phones with dying battery lives to light our way. We walked through spiderwebs and stumbled over rocks, laughing all the while.
We walked through a weird little village that looked like it could have been from a strange Tarzan movie or something. That was a little eerie. But we made it out alive!
What an adventure!
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