Good, clean fun: Mayhem at the Boryeong Mud Festival

A few years ago, a flurry of news articles made the rather bold assertion that eating mud could be good for you. There's even a term for it: geophagy, the habit of eating mud or dirt, which is sometimes practiced by pregnant women (and you thought your partner's chicken feet cravings were strange).

The benefits for the skin, as most women know, have been touted for decades.

Cashing in on these supposed benefits of mud, Boryeong, a town in South Chungcheong Province in Korea, kicked off its 15th annual Mud Festival last weekend.

Some 2.26 million people visited the festival last year, and organizers are expecting around 3 million this week. The festival features mud fights, mud slides, mud baths, mud fountains, mud wrestling and even a mud marathon.

The "far-infrared factors" and the "higher levels of Germanium, Mineral and Bentonite contents" are beneficial for the skin, according to festival organizers, meaning you're getting better skin as you roll in the madness. 

One of Korea's biggest music festivals, Green Groove Festival, will be taking place on the same beach from July 21-22. Akon and Infected Mushroom are headlining.

Here's the muddy mayhem, in photos. 

Boryeong Mud Festival, Dae-Chon Beach, Boryeong (보령), South Chungcheong Province
1029-3 Sinheuk-dong, Boryeong, South Chungcheong-Province 충청남도 보령시 신흑동 1029-3; +82 41 933 7051 
Tickets:  www.mudfestival.or.kr 

More on CNNGo: 6 crazy fun things to do in Korea this summer