Every year for the last 12 years thousands of people have visited Daecheon Beach on the west coast of South Korea for a 9 day festival that is supposed to be about the health benefits of a certain kind of mud, but I think is really just about getting muddy.

Muddy Buddies

I attended this year’s event by joining a tour group called Korean Safari which caters to foreigners. The cost of the tour was 69,000 Won and included a chartered bus and a min-bak motel room. A min-bak is a room with no furniture where you use blankets and pillows on the floor when you sleep. Min-baks are more comfortable than jjimjilbangs and a good deal for small groups on a tight budget.

Mascot Gangstas

The tour bus ride from Itaewon in Seoul to the beach took 2.5 hours. Once we arrived at Daecheon Beach we checked into the min-bak and soon afterward we headed out to the military training mud flats, an enormous area of mud that is exposed when the ocean tide recedes.

Mudflat Wrestling

We arrived at the mud flats as one group was finishing with the mud flat training exercises. From what I could see, it appeared to be a lot of fun and was geared around playing team games in the mud. Shortly after this game session ended, a 5k and 10k running race on the mud flats took place. Everybody who finished the race received a medal, even though not everyone took the race seriously. Some members of our group joined in the race and some members started their own mud wrestling games.

Mudflat 5km Participant

When the race was over, our group was scheduled to participate in the mud flat training exercises, however, it was starting to get late in the afternoon, and people were getting hungry so we returned to the min-bak to wash up and eat dinner.

After dinner, it was still early as the sun had not yet set, so we headed over to the main mud area where you will find mud slides, a mud pool, a mud prison, a performance stage and lots and lots of people getting really muddy. In this area, there is so much mud flying around that it is impossible to walk around without getting some mud on you.

Boogie Woogie

There was even a place where you could get different colors of mud to paint yourself with including red, yellow, and blue. For this you had to wait in a long line, but in my opinion it was worth the wait because you stand out from the rest of the muddy people and you can get some really interesting pictures as your souvenirs.

The rest of the evening was a big party on the beach. There were so many people and it was so much fun. The vibes are good at the Mud Festival, and that has to be because getting muddy brings the playfulness out of people.

Giant Mudslide

The next day, I walked around taking pictures of muddy people and enjoyed the live music performances. Daecheon Beach is a huge beach; it is really long and fairly wide. So if you get tired of the mud you can easily rinse off in the ocean and spend time relaxing on the beach.

There is a special “foreigner dining area” which serves hamburgers. That along with a good number of English speaking information booths made me feel that the festival organizers do what they can to make foreigners have fun and feel comfortable.

By 4pm our group had reassembled and departed for Seoul. A couple hours later, we arrived safely back in Itaewon.

Sitting at my desk and looking back I can easily recommend attending the Boryeong Mud Festival. I’ve gone two years in a row and can attest to the wonderful positive effects that getting muddy has on people. This is a truly unique festival in the world and even made it on a list of the 10 Craziest Festivals in 2009 created by Virgin Media.

Resources
Korean Safari Tours
Boryeong Mud Festival

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