The Honam plain in south-western Korea is a wide, flat land of rice fields, and its northern edge near Iksan is the oldest rice country on the peninsula, where the kingdom of Baekje once had a second capital. Wanggung-ri is the site of a royal palace, about ten kilometres from the middle of Iksan, in fields gently rising to low hills. UNESCO recognised it in 2015 as one of the historic areas of Baekje, the old kingdom that ruled the south-west from the first to the seventh century.
Baekje was a sophisticated state, with a lively trade with China and Japan, and its craftsmen and monks introduced Buddhism and writing to Japan. In the early seventh century, King Mu is said to have built a palace here, and the site, excavated since the 1960s, shows the foundations of workshops, a garden with a pond, a water supply system and what may be the earliest known royal toilets in the region. A five-storey stone pagoda stands in the middle of the fields, in a plain, elegant style that was imitated in Japan. A few kilometres away, the Mireuksa temple site has the remains of the largest stone pagoda in Korea, partly rebuilt. The Mireuksa story involves King Mu's marriage to a princess of the rival Silla kingdom, which is told in legend and is certainly not proven.
For a rider the pleasure is the pace. The roads through the plain are flat and straight, with long sight-lines over rice paddies and the odd greenhouse, and the surface is excellent, while speed cameras are frequent and well signed. Further east, the roads climb into the Jeonbuk mountains with bends and forest views, and Maisan, a pair of rock peaks resembling horse ears, is a day away. Summers are humid, with a rainy season in July, and autumn, with golden rice and red maple leaves, is the finest season.
Iksan, a city of nearly three hundred thousand people, has all the fuel and food you want, and Wanju and Yeonmu are smaller towns. Jeonju, about twenty-five kilometres east, is the capital of Korean cuisine, famous for bibimbap, a bowl of rice mixed with vegetables, egg and chilli paste, and has a large old quarter of tiled houses. Take water, a hat and sunscreen to the site, since there is little shade.