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| Arm gaurd tower |
For those of you who know nothing about Korea (basically all of my friends and family), here is a brief and [probably] historically inaccurate history:
DMZ = Demilitarised Zone
MDL = Military Demarcation Line
A Brief History
On the 25th of June 1950 war broke out between the communists in the North, supported by China, and the democratic people of the South, supported by communism's biggest rival, the USA.
The war lasted three years. Bear in mind that until 1945 (the end of WW2, Korea had been at war with Japan).
On the 27th of July 1953 a cease fire was declared and North and South Korea were separated indefinitely. The border was drawn up, literally, by each side drawing a line on a map.
In order to maintain the peace those clever people of the UN decided that there would be a 2km wide DMZ on either side of the north-south border.
The irony is that the so-called DMZ is actually the most militarised place on Earth. The whole area is surrounded by watch towers, CCTV, military bases, and barbed wire and it is "protected" by no less than 2 million troops.
Back to the Present
Obviously, this being Korea, the DMZ has been turned into a tourist attraction comparable to Disney World (yes, there are theme parks!).
Ric and I decided to visit with a tour organised by Seoul Hiking Group. We NEVER do organised tour groups. Ever since we paid a ton of money to go on a trip in Argentina, to hike around some unique rock formations, and ended up being locked in the back of a people carrier full of pensioners for most of the day, only getting out of the car to follow them around some shops! You can read the full story about that trip
here!
But we'd heard some good things about Seoul Hiking Group and decided we might get to meet some cool people.
We were picked up from Suwon at 9am and didn't get to the first stop until 11.15 thanks to good old Korean traffic.
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| Friendly, huh? |
Imjingak Unification Park
Imjingak is a weird kind of DMZ theme park (rides included). It was built in 1972 partly as a shine of hope for the unification of the two Koreas and partly as a tourism hub. There are restaurants, souvenir shops, cafes, an amusement park, and some monuments and artefacts from the war. The most interesting artefact was an old steam engine that claims to be the last ever train to cross the border from North to South. During the war, before the border was closed down, the train was heading south when it came under heavy fire from both sides and was basically left where it was.
From the park you can get a bus into the DMZ. No private vehicles or taxis are allowed in.
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| Unification Park |
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| Ric Stopher, he loves trains |
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| The last train to ever leave North Korea 60 years ago |
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| Freedom bridge, Imjingak |
Dorasan Train Station
There is a train line that runs from the southern tip of South Korea all the way through North Korea up to China, and connects with the trans Siberian and trans Mongolian railways. Obviously when the border closed, so did the train line. Dorasan station is the last station on the South side. It has recently been renovated and equipped with a customs hall like you find in airports: scanners, passport control, etc. This is in the hope that one day the border will open up again (South Koreans are optimists.) It seems strange though, kind of creepy, as none of the customs equipment has ever been used, there's still plastic wrapping on all the chairs... I can't help but think it was renovated more in the name of tourism than for the likely hood of the border opening.
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| Train line to Pyeongyang, North Korea |
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"Not the last station from the South,
But the first station toward to North" |
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| The brand new, never-used customs hall |
Dora Observatory
The Dora Observatory is a place you can go to
observe North Korea. We were shown a 5 minute video which explains what you can see beyond the MDL. The video points out several mountains which are "filled with tanks and weapons", a radio tower which supposedly scrambles any foreign transmission, a statue of Kim Jong Il, and a couple of villages.
We then lead to a viewing platform with binoculars so that we could get a closer look. When we asked a soldier why we could only take photos from a yellow line 5m away from the edge we were told "for classified reasons".
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| Soldier photo op |
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| The viewing platform, North Korea in the distance |
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| No photo's past the yellow line |
So what does North Korea look like? Unlike South Korea, there are no trees on the mountains. This is supposedly because they have all been cut down and used from fuel. Other than that it didn't look any different from rural South Korea.
The Third Infiltration Tunnel
The highlight of the tour was probably seeing a tunnel that was discovered under the DMZ. It was supposedly dug by North Korean "guerrilla" troops with the intention of attacking Seoul. It is 1.6km long and 2m in diameter.
Before entering the tunnel we were shown a very dramatic propaganda video that was fittingly narrated by an American whose voice wouldn't seem out of place in a WW2 propaganda film. The video told us how North Korea has bombs capable of reaching Suwon, how the tunnel could mobilise 30,000 troops per hour (only if they were under 5ft5), and how North Korea had claimed the tunnel was the work of South Korean spies.
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| The tunnel |
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| Unification monument |
There were also photographs and artefacts from the war, including some particularly disturbing pictures of dead North Korean troops.
All in All
The day reminded us of why we don't do organised tours: being told when and where to eat, being given 10 minutes to look at something that I might have liked to spend 30 minutes looking at, having to wait around on the bus for people who didn't care to stick to the dictated times.
And as for meeting cool people:
- the old Korean couple who insisted of sitting in the same seats on the bus every time we got on and off, ignorant to the fact that no one else was sticking to the same seats and that it was actually quite annoying having to wait for them to argue with the person in
their seat at every stop.
- the American girl who spoke so loudly during the entire trip that everyone on the bus knew she was going to a yoga retreat in Thailand for Christmas.
- the bus driver who thought 40 degrees was a comfortable temperature to turn the heating to whilst we sat in traffic for 2 hours.
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| Oh, and there was snow! |
All last week my kindergarten students were telling me how excited they were about the arrival of December as Santa Claus would come and there would be snow. I kept trying to explain to them that snow isn't always synonymous with December but the didn't believe me.
Some snow fell last week but it didn't stick. This time it fell during the night and covered everything. It's bloody freezing!
