Poryong Mud Festival 2012

When: Mid-July, every year
Where: Poryong, South Korea

For everybody who's gone through life being admonished by religion and conscientious mothers not to indulge in mudslinging, the annual Mud Festival at Poryong in South Korea must come as a godsend. The ultimate opportunity to cover friends, family and yourself in mud; to wallow in slime and get really mucky- that's what the Poryong Mud Festival is all about. It happens annually- at the peak of summer- at Poryong (along the west coast province of South Chungcheong), and attracts hundreds of mud-mad visitors, both Korean as well as foreign.

Calling this unusual event the 'Poryong' Mud Festival is a bit of a misnomer, because the festival actually takes place not at the coastal town of Poryong but at nearby Taechon Beach. The mud for the festival, however, comes from Poryong, and is supposed to be chockfull of minerals that are good for your skin. The mud is believed to reduce wrinkles, get rid of excess oils from your skin, and help stimulate the growth of new surface cells.

As you've probably guessed, mud baths are the main highlight of the Poryong Mud Festival- but they're not the only feature of this somewhat messy event. The festival also includes other interesting competitions: mud massages, a mud sculpture contest, a mud beauty contest and mud body painting contests. For the duration of the festival, Taechon Beach changes into a vast, muddy stretch of mud slides, mud baths, mud massage rooms and more- all geared towards making this a really muddy, messy, grubby and fun festival!

For more information on South Korea Travel