The 13th Annual Boryeong Mud Festival (?? ?? ??) started yesterday at Daecheon Beach, Boryeong, South Korea. For any travel lover currently located in Korea this is a highly recommended travel experience not to be missed.
I had the pleasure of going to the 2007 and 2008 events, and I definitely recommend experiencing this festival at least once in your life. 
It all started in 1998, when a local company who made natural mud based soap and cosmetics, had a great idea to start a big mud festival to increase tourism and sales. As a result, every year since 1998, a couple of million people descend on the small city of Boryeong for nine days of mud, mud, and more mud.
The mud is sourced from high mineral deposit mud flats in and around the Boryeong area. The locals are very proud of its natural well-being and cosmetic benefits. It’s basically a great excuse to get covered head to toe in mud, and to get you and your friends as dirty as you can.
The festival takes place along the shoreline of Daecheon beach. There are mud slides, mud obstacle courses, a mud prison, a mud wrestle pit, mud pools, and mud stations to make sure you’re never too clean. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being surrounded by friends and total strangers throwing and flinging mud at each other in a war like fashion.
After you’ve gotten all muddy, you can go down to the beach and wash away all of the mud from your your hair, ears, eyes, and body… Then go back up to the festival and get dirty all over again!
In addition to the mud activities, you can also take massages, or look at the local mud based products and cosmetics. If you are a foreigner, you can also get a free bar of mud soap if you sign the visitors guestbook.
The best thing about the festival is the laid back atmosphere. Most people really enjoying behaving like children again. Drinking is encouraged, so you get to see a lot of drunk mud fights, and people dancing and cheering, and generally having a muddy good time.
To Get In:
There are buses and trains from Seoul that go to the Daecheon terminal. You can then either take a local bus, or a 6,000-10,000 won ($6-10) taxi ride to the main beach.
Train is probably the easiest and fastest to avoid any traffic jams, use their English website for timetables, trains depart Seoul from Yongsan station and cost $16 for the SaeMaEul train (1st class) and $11 for the MuGungHwa (2nd class) train.
Accommodation:
It helps if you have something pre-booked, however when I went in 2007 with 10 of my friends we easily got a large minbak (??) for about $10 each. There are many motels (??) and minbaks along the north side of the beach. Prices for a private room can start from $70, but if you have a group of friends you can easily hire a large room in a minbak for $10-$30 each.
Quick tip 1: Be careful that you get the right ticket if you catch a bus/train. There is a larger city an hour or two away called Daejeon, so make sure you ask for DaeCHeon (??), not DaeJeon (??).
Quick tip 2: If you decide to get dirty, don’t take your camera with you. Mud gets thrown everywhere, and can render your camera useless. That’s why I’ve got so few photos. Check out the awesome photos taken below by flickr user stinkie pinkie.
For more information about the Boryeong Mud Festival visit the festival’s official website in Korean or English.
