가거도

 This is a full review of our trip to 가거도, an island in Korea. I wrote most of this in the Google review but not all of it would fit so I thought I'd post it here:

가거도:

Sadly, not my favorite Korean island and definitely the first one that I've felt the need to give a bad review of to warn others about. This is the first island out of the ones we've visited so far that I'm really not excited or even very willing to return to.

It's very beautiful and we loved the remoteness of it and the nature, but it was very expensive. A small room that was of much lesser quality than those that usually run us ₩30,000 on other islands cost us nearly double that here and it was absolutely filthy. In the indescribably dirty bathroom were very used (over-used, to the point that the bristles were all fuzzed out from someone consistently brushing way too hard for a very, very long time— I've never seen a brush so frayed and worn out) toothbrushes in a cup encrusted with black mold, black mold throughout the room, disgusting poop caked in the toilet in various places, you could barely see your reflection in the large wall mirror there was so much scum on it and the mirror finish on the back of the glass was literally rotting off and disintegrating, and much much more that I won't even get into.

Don't misunderstand, we are not spoiled americans with unrealistic western standards. We are travellers that have lived in Korea for years and love sleeping on the floor on blankets, we understand the cultural differences and enjoy experiencing and living them. We never expect western style hotels. Given the choice, we choose traditional rooms over those with beds. We never expect a stereotypical holiday inn, especially on these small, beautiful islands, but this room was not even cleaned (beside the blankets being at least folded in a pile— they even left the vacuum in the middle of the room and DIRTY TOILET PAPER PILED ON TOP of the trash can lid in the bathroom! Couldn't even put it IN the bin, just tossed it on top! It was one of those swinging lids, you press down, the lid swings open, the trash drops in, lid swings back, how much more effort is that?) There was someone's open, used razor on the sink with its lid near the faucet. There was crusty filth on surfaces. I didn't want to touch the faucet. My husband even wiped some dirty substance off of the door that looked too gross to remain if we were. This was absolutely the worst place presented as a room intended for customers that I have ever seen in my life in all of the countries we've traveled to and in all of the places we've stayed. Ever. Be warned. I have pictures to back all this up because I was so incredibly both horrified and amazed, but I am graciously not posting them.

We are use to dinners being served early on the islands, but on 가거도, by the time we got back from hiking in the evening, the few eating places available that seemed meant for the public were closed. We found a shop and to buy two small convenience sized cans of cold spam for dinner (that room we paid so much won for didn't even have basic amenities and the shop we bought them from didn't even have a microwave), a can of fruit to share, and two bottles of water came to ₩25,000. The cost of two high quality meals where we live.

The part that drove me to actually write a review is that we travel to a lot of Korean islands and always fall in love with them. Even though we know very little Korean, we always get by because everyone is so wonderful. Not here. We were almost stranded here because the lady that ran the little ferry booth couldn't understand our passports. We kept telling her the information she wanted but she was not having it. It was really bad. She unsurprisingly seemed to have never seen or processed one before. It was painful. A man in the booth behind her who also couldn't understand the passport, actually called my husband and I stupid and my husband looked at him knowing full well what he said and when the man realized that my husband understood a bit of Korean and what he was saying, he became embarrassed and shamefully disappeared. My husband had work the next day and we would have been stranded if a Korean behind us hadn't explained the passport to the lady who didn't seem to understand even hearing it from a Korean. Even the Korean man was even getting frustrated with her, having to point and repeat over and over again because she was so incredibly unable to do her job. It's not a bustling tourist place, we didn't see any other waygooks and the people on the island seemed to confirm that they had never seen them either so I was shocked we were saved this way. Luckily we managed to get ferry tickets back home again to the mainland and I am putting 가거도 on the bottom of my travel list here. A shame. Lovely place, just unlike any Korean island I'd been to before. They're usually so friendly and wonderful.

The only exception was an extremely kind police officer that kept driving back and forth by us periodically as we walked along the road to get to the mountain trails because I guess he wasn't use to seeing waygooks either walking in 가거도 and didn't think we'd be okay if left unattended too long. He stopped several times to call us to his car and ask us what we were doing and talk to us in Korean to see what we were up to and was very sweet, although  persistent to slow us down. He tried to tell us to go back to town, to the place that we were staying at, because it was too late in the day to go exploring but that wasn't remotely the case at all, and we continued on and had a great time as always. He did accurately warn us about the crazy amount of leeches once you leave the road though— I've never seen so many in my life. We thought he was obviously exaggerating, we'd pull a few off that night when we went to bed, but no, he was not. They would climb quickly up our legs (We didn't know leeches could inchworm up your legs that fast!) and body. We were constantly flicking them off several at a time but it was all part of the fun. That kind of stuff we don't mind. Part of the experience.

We spent the afternoon and evening climbing the mountain and enjoying some nature and birding, finally free of people and left in peace. Oh the relief of getting away from all the human drama to get to that moment of absolute freedom! So glad to be free of all that nonsense! Just us in nature where we belong.

It was an absolutely breathtaking island, why the two stars instead of one, but just extremely dirty in the village and they didn't seem to be use to westerners AT ALL, like I've said. Once you get out of town and off the roads though, it's great. If I were rating just the nature and not all the man-made obstacles, hassles, and annoyances in the way, I'd give it a full five stars.

Maybe if you bring your own food and camping gear and hope to not be confronted about it? Just bypass the village entirely and stay in the mountains? Just be sure you speak Korean because if that person hadn't  happened to be there at the ferry booth to reason with the lady trying to process tickets, we wouldn't have been able to get a ferry ticket home and unlike the other islands, I would not want to be stranded on 가거도!