The Sonjuk Bridge is a small stone bridge in the Korean city of Kaesong, and it has the most bloodstained history of any bridge on the peninsula. In 1392, as the Goryeo dynasty collapsed and General Yi Seong-gye prepared to found the Joseon dynasty, his son Yi Bang-won invited the scholar Jeong Mong-ju, a loyalist of the old dynasty, to a meeting. On his way home Jeong was struck down on this bridge, and tradition says that the dark stains on the stone are his blood, and that bamboo grew from the spot. Jeong became a symbol of loyalty, and a stone memorial and pavilion were built beside the bridge in later centuries.
Kaesong was the capital of Goryeo for almost five hundred years, and it holds royal tombs, palace foundations, a famous academy and the remains of city walls. UNESCO listed the historic monuments in 2013. The city sits just north of the demilitarised zone, a short drive from the border, and it is known for ginseng, for its cuisine and for a long tradition of trade.
Here I have to be plain with you: Kaesong is in North Korea, and it is not somewhere a rider can simply turn up. Foreign access is tightly controlled, visits are only possible on organised tours when the authorities allow them, and individual travel by motorcycle is not possible. Even guided access has been suspended for long periods. Anyone with an interest in the place should check current government travel advice, and treat this stop as a piece of history rather than a plan.
Kaesong is a city of more than three hundred thousand, and the landscape around is wooded hills, rice fields and rivers, with pine forests on the ridges. The famous local dish is a banquet of many small plates in brass bowls, and the area was known in the past for its ginseng and for its roadside inns. For anyone curious about the story, the Goryeo Museum in the city, in the old Confucian academy, keeps the tradition of the dynasty alive.