With a 4th day on Jeju-do — it’s a Korea Slow Trip after all! — we visited picturesque Udo for a theraputic afternoon of unwinding on its pristine beaches and zooming around in an electric three wheeler. If this picture of seagulls in the ocean breeze evokes your image of an island paradise, that’s just the start of the ferry ride when my wife snapped this on her cellphone. It was that relaxing.
If Jeju is Korea’s default honeymoon destination, Udo would be the newlyweds’ default romantic hideout with its translucent turquoise waters, sleepy villages and an abundance of lonely lighthouses for that perfect couple’s selfie. This is one place in Jeju where foreigners won’t outnumber the Koreans — it’s where the Jeju natives themselves hang out on weekends.
A gorgeous ferry ride with the UNESCO World Heritage landmark of Seongsan Ilchulbong in full view; a curvy coastal loop perfect for a slow cruise in a two-seat scooter; perhaps a steaming bowl of haemul ramyeon incorporating fresh catch from the island’s sea women. It was the ultimate getaway from the breakneck speed of Seoul.
Old school car ferries — some featuring Korean-style cabins with heated ondol flooring — arrive at the colorful port of Cheonjin in 25 minutes. Despite the relatively cheap price for bringing one’s own vehicles, the vast majority of visitors would leave their cars behind and rent something more maneuverable for the island’s narrow streets.
It was the smallest motor vehicle I had ever rented, a three-wheeled electric scooter with a roof to shield us from the midday sun on the island’s treeless pastures and shorelines. As the entire island can be circumnavigated in one 16 km loop, battery bank shouldn’t be a problem even for those staying overnight at one of the island’s many minbaks.
The round-island loop is actually Olle Trail 1-1, a local section of Jeju’s official long distance footpath inspired by the Camino de Santiago. Along the route visitors would frequently come across the unique sight of doldam, low walls of dark volcanic rocks recently rediscovered as an essential part of Jeju’s cultural landscape. Time will tell whether Jeju-do will push for this landscape’s inscription as UNESCO World Heritage, much like the dry stone walls of Stari Grad Plain on the Croatian island of Hvar.
Our first stop was the exceedingly famous beach of Seobin Baeksa, frequently featured in K-dramas and TV commercials and widely considered the most beautiful beach in Korea. Resist the urge to take a souvenir of the perfect white sand — tiny grains of fossilized red algae under the microscope — as it is illegal.
The Seobin — West Coast in Korean — is hardly the only sandy white beach on Udo as the eastern shore also boasts the Hagosudong Beach, a prime snorkling spot in warmer season with a rock sculpture to honour the island’s original freedivers, the traditional female-only profession of haenyeo.
The haenyeo‘s daily harvest can still be observed at the tiny islet of Biyangdo, its entrance conspicuously marked by a conch-shaped landmark covered with conch shells and flanked by a makeshift eatery serving the day’s catch in the form of raw hoe. Passion for seafood here culminates in an annual fiesta, known as the Udo Turban Shell Festival (우도소라축제) usually held on the second weekend of April.
At the end of Biyangdo stands an eye-catching lighthouse amongst a barren outcrop of volcanic rocks, the ubiquitous building material used for the island’s doldam walls and its man-sized dol hareubang guardians, Jeju-do’s answer to Easter Island’s moai traditionally placed at village entrances for protection against evil spirits.
4 km further down the Olle loop, we reached the obligatory pitstop for all rental scooters at the snack stands above Geommeolle Beach. While Udo certainly isn’t a desert island, it’s definitely an island of desserts with dozens of cafes dotting its charming coastline, all serving bungeo-ppang type pastry and ice cream featuring Udo’s main agricultural crop of peanuts.
Contrasting with the black sandy beach of Geommeolle is a white lighthouse atop Udo Peak, the islet’s highest point at merely 130m. In the waters below the rugged bluff is a sizeable sea cave, former home to a whale according to local legends.
Literally Cow Island in Korean, Udo is ironically more famous for war horses just like the rest of Jeju. Horses grazing precariously along Geommeolle’s cliffs serve as testament to the islet’s past as a state ranch, established in the 17th century on its windy pastures to supply tributary horses to the imperial court in Seoul.
Our circumnavigation of Udo took a little over three hours with frequent photo stops and a dessert break. By 15:30 we squeezed onto the next boat back to Seongsan Port on the main island, this time on a ferry without the crowded — and uncomfortably stuffy with live coverage of COVID-19 news shown on the little TV! — ondol room.
In retrospect we’re glad we didn’t bring along our rental car, a boxy Kia Ray with a small engine (1L, 77hp) and relatively large turning radius, which would have been harder to maneuver on the island’s many deadends. Besides, a zippy scooter was just the right vehicle for that holiday island feel.
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