Well that was a lovely little ride

Even in the late afternoon haze as Korea appeared out of the sea it was looking good.
Korea is everything Russia isn’t, it’s polite it’s friendly, it’s helpful, efficient, smiley, and best of all its in English, the signs and everyone speaks it to some degree. Right from getting off the ferry it’s all so organized, straightforward, logical, achievable and our situation isn’t even that simple, my Canadian friend is putting his bike on a truck to a crating agent to have it flown to the states there by avoiding the riding paperwork and remaining in transit and I have to get temporary insurance and plates and permission to ride in Korea and it is done painlessly and professionally, I even get given some money back cus I pre paid too much in Russia. All this with a bow and a hand shake no shouting, no pointing and demands no ‘no’s’. I'm even allowed to use the customs internet cus I haven’t checked it in 3 days, I go straight to the reply from the shipping company, I have been granted permission to put my bike on their ship for a bargain $500. Everything is wonderful I’m escorted to the ferry to unload my bike having cleared immigration and got all my personal, motorcycle and riding documentation completed.
Its dark now and a new country and night time never my favourite combination. The Canadians bike is put on a truck and he is leaving with it, so it was a very quick and distracted goodbye when we thought we would be sharing a room and a few beers tonight. But his company arrived at the right time and it’s only the unexpected efficiency of the country that has meant we are going our separate ways so soon. I suppose now that will be my last chance meeting with another overlander. I'm leaving that lifestyle behind, for a while. So off I go on my own again totally on my own, the negativity I carried with me in Russia has been replaced with respect, gratitude, and gets this, even enjoyment. Out of the port I ride, with forklift drivers, and customs officials waving as I leave.
Right outside on top of a hi rise is a motel sign and I can read it cus it says ‘motel’ in English so I ride round the corner and park undercover and am greeted by the check in guy who shows me exactly where to park and then taken to the reception, he, remarkably just assumes I want a room, unlike turning up at a hotel or guest house in Russia where they wonder what you want.
‘How much?’
’40,000 won’
Shit that sounds a lot but it its £22. Ok I’ll take it
I'm given a toothbrush and razor and take the life up , I'm not expecting much, its gorgeous, big TV massive bed, air conditioning clean and spacious, no built in soviet misery here. It’s wonderful. There are shampoo bottles in the bathroom and lotions and moisturizers and all sorts of things, kettle and fridge the great thing about being deprived such things is now I appreciate them all the more.
Out of the window I can see the ferry I've just got off of and the town I’m about to go into
, Out to the street I can look around me without fear of falling down an open drain. There is all sorts of cool stuff, dried fish and octopus, chillies and seaweed. I try to get a sim card but the Korean phone system seems unique to them, they don’t even have Sims in their phones I don’t really understand it but I accept it .I know in this polite helpful country if it were possible it would be done. I find the international ATM and it works and dispensed large quantities of large denomination notes with very large numbers on them but they too are easy to read and understand. So now I have money I completely wuss out and instead of going for something local and traditional I go get burger and fries. Everyone smiles, the manners, the politeness the gratitude for my business, it’s all so refreshing a smile generates a smile I want to stop people just to tell them now much I love their country.
And just to top it off back in my room I have English movies and free porn.
Funny how this morning knowing I have to ride across the country I don’t have a trace of butterflies, I don’t even have a map. Just some names of towns to look for and some road numbers. It’s a lovely temperature and there are so many sign posts that it’s hard to pay attention to the road. The road runs south alongside the beach, its clean and welcoming and not a bottle in site, there is however along its entire length an impenetrable fence with bard wire coiled along the top, apparently to keep out the North Koreans. Who might swim south, so guarded gateways are the only way onto the beach. There is a strong military present; I don’t know if it’s just manoeuvres or daily duties, but helicopters fly over head, I find myself singing the mash theme inside my helmet. There are army convoys and lots of check points I'm not stopped , and some now they don’t look that intimidating with their painted faces and thick glasses they just look like dirty bell boys. Not really fighting machines.
There is not a single bit of doubt in my mind, the route is straight forward and well signposted I would like a map but I don’t need one.
I'm riding slowly enjoying the road, obeying the limits, as do all other drivers, I would like to ride around more, see the country but I have to remember the bike is sick, and just cus its running now don’t mean it will continue to, it’s great to be enjoying the ride and be stress free, let’s not put any in the equation, let’s stick with plan A, I still get to go coast to coast.
It’s hard to find something that would sum up Korea in a photo, something to stand my bike in front to say I rode it to Korea, but that’s the only complaint I have,
my helmet is worry free, the ride if wonderful this is how it should be, not fretting about all that’s to come and everything under the sun.
But of course once ya get the feel of how the road and regulations work your mind is free to wonder, and It occurs to me I could get a flight on Sunday and because I cross the international date line I can be in Denver still on Sunday for my daughter’s birthday party, it’s only a thought for a minute because as soon as it occurs to me I know, I don’t think, I just know with absolute certainty that that is what I'm going to do. I've ridden as far as I can, without carnets and without huge freight costs and with a bike that’s now using more oil than petrol.
I stop at a sort of food hall the toilets are clean, the queues are orderly, and no one pays me any attention my bike doesn’t even get a glance, I’m not stared at, I order noodle soup I can read the menu I get service with a smile.
I ride over the mountains I even got to lean my squared off and mutated tyre over onto the precipice edge.
It’s a densely populated country, the towns are large and close together, but the road and in-filstructure is perfectly adequate. Everything functions. I go past ski resorts with hotels everywhere, no hint of snow yet, not like a Mongolian August.
Bikes aren’t allowed to use the motorways but that’s fine by me I’m happy to use the truck free main roads. And town by town I run down my list and across to the west coast as the sun is going down.

Ok I've had more adventurous rides and more challenging, and all that, but what I really needed was a pleasurable one and that’s exactly what I got. After all this really is the end of the trip and I've totally run out of superlatives I want uneventful.
It’s a big industrial port and all I have is a name of my man who I've been emailing. I stop to ask a security guard, not only does he speak English he calls my man and gives me the phone
‘Ah Mr. Field, I've been expecting you all day’
‘Sorry I've been riding’
‘I suggest you get a hotel tonight and I will meet you at 9am tomorrow,’ my thoughts exactly. Mr. Security then draws me a map to the hotel that it is recommended I stay the night in.
In this one I get a complete goody bag at reception and the room has a balcony and massive TV, DVD player and microwave and computer, it’s just so lavish. But with sincere apologies I'm told the restaurant is closed. So I wonder down the street and find an empty Chinese the turn off their TV and open up for me, I’m given a fixed meal and help myself to beer out of the fridge, they feed me up, every dish I empty I’m offered a refill not to charge me more just to make sure I'm fed to my likening, these too ladies totally look after me. One of the ladies shows me she has a tattoo on her back too. They don’t speak English but they don’t have to. I know I'm welcome and I just can’t stop smiling in this country.
I get some supplies I have to do laundry, I wash jeans socks and t shirt and hang it on my balcony using my fire escape emergency absailing rope as a washing line, probably frowned upon but so are dirty undies.
I have a busy day I'm up at 7. My clothes are still wet I put them on anyway. Then I go through my panniers and the noodles I bought from England and never used once are thrown out alone with Ukraine rice, Russian tins of salmon, Kazakhstan baked beans, and all the emergency food I have carried all this way, I throw it all out. And my bike is loaded with bike cloths, and all the things I don’t need any more, and some things I do but forget to take out like marmite. It’s amazing how my panniers swallow up so much stuff now I don’t have all this space consuming food that wasn’t consumed. Next time I’ll know different, I can travel so much lighter, I'm not sure I’ll even take a stove next time, and all those spares, 2 inner tubes that take up so much room, I never got so much as a puncture let alone gauged tyres and ripped tubes.
And I'm off, the last 3 miles of the trip still using the last of my tank full of cheap Russian petrol. To the terminal where hundreds of new cars wait in lines to be loaded onto massive ships.
Security come and greets me. And insist I come into their break room for a coffee. I would really rather stand in the sun in my wet jeans and t shirt but I can’t refuse their hospitality, Mr. man arrives right on time and I'm instructed to ride my bike through the barrier and into the compound of a million shiny cars, the ferries, ships whatever they are hold 6000 cars and one dodgy motorbike. The leave everyday all over the world. That’s a lot of cars. There is a brilliant model of one in a glass case with the side cut out to show the multiple levels inside, it holds trains too, I want to take a photo but I'm a tourist in a profession logistics operation and just taking one of my bikes before I leave it, causes busy men to impatiently stand around.

I have to show the loader how to start the bike, I keep the jump wire a secret and show him how to bump it Mongolian style, and it doesn’t work. Well you get the idea. I pat my bike good buy, another too brief parting of ways; see ya in Southampton, in November. I pad lock my lid onto the seat and without time for a second glance I'm taken to a big office where the prepared paperwork is gone over with me, and juice is bought in for me to drink, then I'm driven to the customs broker, and older man happy to see me, I have the docs he needs and he quickly and efficiently deals with it all. Whilst coffee is bought in for us and then offers to take me to the bus station.
It’s a long drive but he insists and after he had sorted out my express ticket to Seoul and when I shake his hand with both of my hands and all my gratitude he giggles.
God I need a wee there’s a lot of beverages in this export business. All this has taken 1 ½ hours and it’s done. I'm told how lucky I am that these requests are seldom granted permission. I feel lucky I fell honoured, I feel happy and relaxed and proud of my achievement and when I sit down on that bus and we drive past the paddy fields on the express hi way. I push myself back in the seat with an incredible feeling of well being, relief and general elation.
My trainers have been on the way out for a while in fact I only bought them along for the Sweden rock festival back in June and they are still with me, and they stink, but now with wet socks inside them it’s pushed them over the edge. They are offensive, I have to get rid of them but that means taking them off in a shop to try the new trainers to be on. It’s going to be embarrassing. Another tricky operation I have to consider
I call my daughter and tell her as soon as I get to Seoul and find a toilet I will be booking and flight and she will be the first to know when I'm going to be there, she pointed out that actually I will be the first to know,
And that’s pretty much what happened, I met my friend who I first met in Mongolia, (be warned don’t say ‘come visit if ya ever in the area’ cus I bloody will)
we find trainers and I put my damp and minging socks along with my rancid trainers in a sealed plastic bag and throw them out, they were the ones I wore on TV, no wonder they are knackered, I've landed on my feet allot in them, now they are left in Seoul. (There’s a joke there somewhere but I'm tired of trying to find it) I book a flight for Sunday just like I knew I always would.
There is the most amazing overlander network and with the help of horizons unlimted.com it still amazes me how close nit and supportive everyone is. I got an email from a Fin I met in Kazakhstan who rode his BMW back home from working in Korea he had heard I was going to Korea and sent me some good routes to ride, unfortunately I didn’t get the email till the bike was shipped, I got txt from a guy from Grimsby currently in Bangkok cus a Russian shipper wondered how I was getting on and asked that I call him, he said he thought I was a very brave man. I got forwarded emails from helpers and people who know people. We’re all out there doing our thing and sometimes struggling, always learning and occasionally in a positional to help. It’s been a trip of people’s generosity, from a bed and a home stay on the first night in Germany to the ex pat English teachers spare room on the last night. I didn’t realize it was a life on the road that bought me all that until suddenly I'm travelling in airports again, the more usual way to get from A to B but you miss all you might C on the way.
The last 36 hours were partying in Seoul,
guest listed to the British embassy bar, where I meet people I have nothing in common with but nationality, the main topic of conversation is the dentistry deadline, there dental benefits are ending at the end of the month and everyone is getting work done before the subsidized oral benefits end. It’s a world I can’t get a grip on.
My last day ended with an invite to a girly night out, now that’s how to end a bike trip, going bar hopping with 7 girls and I'm the only guy, that’s the great thing about knowing someone in a strange country, without her it would have ended alone in a hotel being a tourist, but not this trip, not this time. That’s how to celebrate 15000 miles 12 countries, 10 time zones, and 6 ferries all on an £800 eBay bike
Jobs a good 'un, now just gotta cross another 9 time zones in 24 hours and go back in time via the international date line and I got another party to go to. An 8th birthday party,

Sitting on the plane it really sinks in that it’s over, it’s finished. From a spring of lists and the preparation, to the parting of ways on a dock south of the Korean capital. I won’t see my bike again until its stands upon Southampton dock.
I've met riders who have done more and spent more, taken longer, and ridden harder, but on such a small budget I managed a long time dream whilst dreaming up new dreams.
I have delays in Tokyo and LA where I try to hold onto what I’ve been doing, I look at the Hollywood sign as we come into land and wonder if it was all made up like a movie I've just been living.
When the photos flash across my screensaver like they flash across my memory Monklet is captured smiling
When he’s taken off the bike for the last time monklet smiles
When he’s packed in a holdall he smiles

Down in the hold I expect he smiling
God, what have we just done?
I said at the beginning I would try to smile like monklet at whatever came my way, Russia took my smile but Korea bought it back. What a place to end the trip.
Let’s go see if I can make a little face that looks a bit like mine smile.