Destination DMZ

So, after having been here for 2 and 1/2 months I have finally left Daejeon and ventured into other parts of Korea. I came to Korea with the intention of travelling as much as I can. Afterall that is what I do. Having visited 30 plus countries I believe I have earned the label of world traveller and yet I haven't seen much of Korea. When you live in a foreign country it's very easy to allow yourself to become cocooned in the area in which you live. Afterall you've become familiar with that place and the thought of adventuring beyond those borders is a little scary. However I took my first steps this weekend, mind you they were baby steps, but they were steps nonetheless. I went to Seoul for the night on saturday and then went on a DMZ tour on sunday. I will leave my impressions of Seoul for another blog and focus today on the more interesting part of the trip, the DMZ tour.
For those of you unfamiliar with this term, the DMZ is the demilitarized zone seperating North and South Korea. Since the Korean War has never officially ended, they are only at a ceasefire, this border heavily guarded by both sides. The DMZ itself is a 4km wide stretch of land seperating the 2 countries. Since this area is virtually sealed off from people it has become an environmental mecca and a haven for wildlife. The views of it were spectacular.

We started the tour at ImjinGak which is as far north as civilians can go without permission. When the war ended there were there were many families that got seperated, some in the North and some in the South. This place was established to console those who had to leave their homes and families in the north behind. Within ImjinGak is an alter called Manngbaedan, which is where people who have been seperated from their families get together and pray. It is mostly visited on New Years Day and Chusock (Korean Thanksgiving).

Also in ImjinGak is the peacebell which was erected during the 2000 millinium and is meant to signify a wish for peace and reunification between the 2 countries.

We were also able to walk on the freedom bridge which was given it's name because it was where prisoners were exchanged after the war ended.

After ImjinGak we visited the 3rd tunnel. This was a tunnel that was discovered in 1978 and was built by North Korea to infiltrate South Korea. They also found 3 other tunnels but they believe that there are many more. The tunnels all go under the DMZ and into Seoul and could allow 30,000 soldiers to invade South Korea within 1 hour. Their discovery was by accident when S. Korean soldiers disccovered vapours rising from the ground. When they started digging they found the tunnels and were immediatly fired on by N. Korea. The walls inside the tunnels had been marked with coal so that they could argue that were actually coal mines. Other tunnels were found after an engineer from North Korea escaped and gave out the information on other tunnels. It is believed that North Korea, to this day, is continuiing to build tunnels under the DMZ.

We were able to walk down inside the 3rd tunnel and what a walk it was. We were given helmets to wear because of the low ceilings, which of course didn't bother me - I didn't even have to duck. We then walked down an extremely steep hill for about 10 -15 minutes. When I say steep, I mean steep. When we got to the bottom we entered into the tunnel. The tunnel was about 2 feet wide and very damp. Basically we walked to the end, maybe another 10 minutes, saw some barbed wire that was blocking the exit, turned around and walked back. We then had to climb back up that extremely steep hill and it was not easy. Although the story of the tunnels was very interesting, it was not worth the effort of going down and seeing them.

After the tunnels we headed to the most interesting part of the tour, the Dora observatory. This is the closest that you can come to North Korea and given that it was a clear day you could actually see Kesung City, which is the 2nd largest city in N. Korea. Unfortunatly you weren't allowed to take pictures of the DMZ here but the views were spectacular. Since the area is virtually uninhabited, it was very serene and beautiful. It looked like a painting. I won't even try to describe it here because words won't do it justice. Off in the distance you could see the only 2 towns in the DMZ zone. The first one is called Daesungdong or freedom village, which is located on the S. Korea side. The people who live in this village pay no taxes and the men are exempt from military service (in South Korea all men must serve 2 years in the military before they turn 40). The other town you can see is called Kijongdong, which is a propoganda village built by North Korea. No one actually lives here but it was designed to give visitors the impression that North Korea is prosperous. Apparently it contains giant loud speakers that blare out propoganda messages 6 - 10 hours a day, although we couldn't hear anything while we were there. According to one of the soldiers that we spoke to neither country is allowed to enter the DMZ zone or do anything in it without telling the other, however North Korea continously breaks this rule.

After the observatory we went to our final stop which was the Dorasan Train station. This is the most northern train station in S. Korea. It has trains that leave once a week to Pyongyang. It was very surreal because, of course, the train station was completely empty. It is under construction with tracks eventually being opened to connect to China and Russia. Someday if the 2 countries are reunited then this will be the station used to reunite families that have been seperated.

It was a very interesting tour and it made me realize just how real the tension is between the 2 countries.