Sunday, September 7, 2008

5. Sutasaaaaaahhh

With one cup of sweet black tea in me and some provisions (corn chips and water), today I went to visit this place that Stevo told me about called Sutasa (sa meaning temple). It's a Buddhist temple about 10 minutes taxi from here, or a 3-hour walk. I taxi'd it of course! I got to the place (which is an experience in itself, with so many mountains absolutely everywhere you look!) Then I went through this decorated archway thingo and into the temple. There were about 4 or 5 of these 'huts' and each had these little description in front of them..








And then I went walking towards the mountains, and you see all these little places where people can just sit and listen to nature, kinda like this:





and then.. well then the inevitable happened. I was faced one again with a choice of direction. Take the road less travelled or keep to the path? As has become a kind of rule with me, I had to take the muddy, dark one that led into the mountains.




But then another intersection! Both looked equally mysterious! So I decided to go up hill, because I love going up hill!





Remember in one of my other entries I said that I saw a huge spider in its web blocking my path, and I took it as a sign to take another road. Yeah well the same thing happened here but this time I chose to ignore it. I saw the spider on the path, but since the path was so big I could easily duck underneath its web and keep going! Bad idea! At first I thought I saw a stick move, looking closer I saw that it was a SNAKE! After my initial shock I took this picture as it was getting off the path.




I decided that I'd keep going.. I took one more step and saw another one!! Sure snakes are great and I love em, but these weren't behind some glass nor at a safe distance, they were about a metre away from me..






After the initial shock, the first thing that came to my mind is the paths of the two snakes. They made a rough 'X'.. as in turn back don't go this way. Well that's what I saw anyway! So I went back to the intersection and took the downhill path towards the stream. Ahh I said to myself, this is the right path..







So the path ended up meeting back with the road a little while later, but there was some construction going on in the place (I assume they were building more hiking paths). So I passed a lot of pathways like this:



And then I ran into a group of workers who were on their lunch break. They sat on in a circle on a blue tarpaulin, with all their side dishes out and chopsticks and bowls and everything. Nothing like the rabbit food or meat pies I see Aussie tradies eating at home! They invited me to join them, but I wasn't hungry, and besides, I was on a mission to see more! So I kept going, and you wouldn't believe where I ended up! Out here in the middle of nowhere.. I ended up in somebody's backyard!




That led me to a road, and by now I had been walking about an hour and half, so I decided it was time to head back. The way back is through another guys' backyard! So I went and as I crossed his driveway I saw a bench with a squirrel on it, so I decided that's where I'd rest and eat my lunch..



Ok now as i sat there I saw birds and more squirrels and spiders and heard all these different insects.. but as I got up to leave, this stubborn guy wouldn't move out of my way.. so (MOMMA WARNING! ITS ONLY A SMALL PICTURE SO YOU CAN SCROLL DOWN FAST) for everyone else, just click on the picture to see it full size.
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There you go momma, so you can keep reading this without being scared of the picture! So then off I went on my way back to Sutasa, I thought I'd get back and go have some proper lunch and some Makkoli which is traditional Korean 'beer' made from rice, it's really refreshing! That however, was not to be.. On this side of the stream they had made a pathway in some spots so people could pass..





But then... and here's where the tale gets interesting.. I saw a sign with a cartoon character on it, pointing to a track going uphill, so I decided I'd take that (knowing that all the paths must lead back to Sutasa), Bad Idea number 2! I had 2 gulps of water left, no food, no phone (battery died), and my camera.. this is where I stopped taking pictures..




I'm not sure if you can see that or not, but it's looking downhill on my path. So I started walking up hill, and I don't mean an easy on-your-treadmill-type-incline, this was tough, in some places I had to get on my hands just to pull myself up the hill! Then I stopped, after half an hour of walking straight up hill, my breath was getting short and I was seeing stars. As most of you know, I'm not the healthiest person around, so I sat on the ground until my breathing returned to normal. Then I was up again.. I thought I saw where it started to go back downhill, but it was just an illusion, the path turned right and went up another steeep incline. By this time I was drenched in sweat, I took long gulps of air and had to lean against every tree that was in my path. Quite a few times I put my foot in the wrong place and slipped because of the loose soil. But it wasn't a far fall (because of the incline), I was able to get a hold or some root of a tree and pull myself up again. After an hour of walking straight up I decided to stop and rest, though this time I lay on the ground and used my bag as a pillow. I lay there for about 10 minutes and decided that the end couldn't seriously be that far away, and I just had to do it. I kept going, I found rare places that were flat but straight after there was another incline even bigger and badder than the last.



Two hours in and still no end I used every motivation technique I knew how, I thought of heroes in stories, and of Bheem and Hanuman, and though they gave me strength, it was only in short bursts. By this time I was needing to take a breather every 5-10 steps, my legs just said NO. And that's when it hit me, I haven't been climbing one big mountain to get to the other side and go back downhill! I've been walking on the crest of a series of different mountains! You know when you look at mountains from a distance and you see the top outline? Yeah well I was walking along those tops! And I was going in the opposite direction to Sutasa. So I made an executive decision.. I finished off the last of my water, found a suitable walking stick and went back down. I used to think that going downhill was easy.. man I thought wrong! So many times I actually had to run down the hill because going step by step I'd slip on the loose dirt. Then stopping was another matter! I just had to aim for some tree and cling on to it to stop myself. Well an hour later I was back down to the cheesy little mocking cartoon character. I gave him a quick punch and took the other path. In 4 minutes flat I was back at Sutasa. I wouldn't have been able to walk if i didn't still have my trusty walking stick with me. Actually I ended up a bit further away from the actual temple, this place seemed to be a camping place by the river and they had toilets. So I went in, turned on a tap and doused my self in this ice cold water!

Then it was off to Sutasa Village to get something proper to drink. I got a 2L bottle of water and a 175ml of Cranberry juice and mixed them together. Then I ordered the only thing I knew how to 'Bi Bim Bap', which is rice and vegies. That was good! Then I had some coffee and just sat at this table by the river, not wanting to get up.. Eventually I asked the shop owner to call me a cab, then I came home and started writing this. Man I'll sleep well tonight! Everything aches!



I know that today's climb was the toughest thing I've ever done. I pushed until I just couldn't go any further.. But if someone had shown me yesterday what I'd go through today; would I still have gone?




Probably not.



But then, isn't that the whole point?


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to see you're exploring the sights and taking it all in...

i can totally picture you walking back out of the forest past the cartoon sign and punching it! hehe

glad to hear you made it through in one piece or thereabouts!

Anonymous said...

Great Blog... very well written .First time I found it - it kept me awake night reading it! and it was so nice meeting you a couple of days later! You certainly have real skill with the camera too - great photos....