Dolmen builders

Two more things to visit today and then our road trip will be over…

The Gochang dolmen site is fascinating.  There are about 440 dolmens in one valley but they are of three different styles.  There are several table style ones like Stonehenge, only shorter, some that are like slabs lying on the ground, and some that are propped up over a shallow dug out area lined with rocks. What I found most interesting about it was how much no-one knows about it.  There are assumptions that it was some kind of cemetery but only some of them had traces of bodies underneath.  Unlike most dolmen collections in other countries, there are three styles,  interspersed with each other, but no-one has discovered a pattern or a reason for that.  Why are there so many all in one place?  Like other dolmen sites no-one is sure how they got the rocks to the right place and got them standing up, or lifted on top of other stones.  None of this prevents some statues of people hauling them around with ropes.

For a complete contrast, we also visited the  Saemangeum dike, the longest in the world, with the certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records to prove it.  It’s 33.9 km long – so long in fact that the only place you can see the whole thing is from the air.  It has created something like 250 square miles of new land…it’s part of an effort to create more farmland.  There is also a plan to create Korea’s first completely green city.  It will be interesting to come back in 10 years or so and see what actually happened.  The area behind the dike is not completely drained yet, and they are counting on the rain to desalinize it.  In the meantime, lots of people are fishing there — there is no limit since the fish will disappear as the land dries out.

Finally, back to Gwangju to catch up with friends in Michael’s restaurant/bar, The Alleyway.  It was Rocky Horror Picture Show night, so I got to seem Michael’s former partner, now the owner, in a dress, wig and highheels.  Seeing a man in fishnet stockings for the first time is a never to be forgotten sight.