Damyang travel info

From Damyang's bus terminal it's about a fifteen-minute walk to the bamboo grove. Step inside Juknokwon and the noise from outside drops away. Giant bamboo closes over the path, and when the wind comes the leaves rub together in a long dry hush. The loop through the grove takes under an hour, so it slots easily into the gap around lunch.

Back down on the Gwanbangjerim embankment, noodle shops line up under old trees. A bowl of anchovy-broth noodles with a medicinal boiled egg on the side is the standard order here. At dinner it's charcoal-grilled tteokgalbi and rice steamed inside a bamboo tube. From April to June there's raw bamboo-shoot salad too. Here bamboo is both the scenery and the ingredient.

Out past the town the roads change. In autumn the rows of metasequoia go orange, and in the hills to the west, pavilions and gardens built by old scholars sit scattered among the trees. It's about three and a half hours by bus from Seoul and under an hour from Gwangju, which suits a long day trip or one slow night.

From Seoul (BUS)

From Gwangju, Daegu, Busan (광주)

From Incheon Airport (ICN)