Up and down the neighbouring stretches of coastline are a series of mud flats, which locals insist are chock full of therapeutic minerals. Because of this, every July tons and tons of the thin almost watery mud, which is not dissimilar in both texture and appearance to chocolate syrup, are transported into the centre of Boryeong for the annual mud festival.

The actual therapeutic value of the mud remains a grey area for most festival goers; everyone there tends to see it as a rather good excuse to wallow around and enjoy a week-long party. In truth, there are some awesomely fun mud attractions on offer. These include mud statues, where actors cake themselves head to toe and pose for photographs, and the mud pit, where people go to play school yard-type games, which all invariably finish with everyone either falling down into the mud or simply hurling large handfuls at each other. The top attraction though is the mud slide, a giant inflatable mud-covered contraption, along which it is possible to slide for over 30m before skidding into a giant pool of mud.

Whilst much of the festival could well be considered pretty infantile, I have to confess that I found it great fun covering myself in mud, and then taking a dip in the sea was a wonderful feeling. The only drawback was a not uncommon one in Korea. The festival draws people from all over Korea, which can make getting a bus or a hotel room a less than simple process. This year the problem was so big that for a few hours on the Sunday afternoon, the festival even managed to run clean out of mud.