Gyeonggi-do

I headed back to Seoul for a few more days before leaving Asia to catch some of the sights that I hadn't gotten around to the first time around, such as the National Museum of Korea and the 14th Century Gyeongbokgung Palace. But the main sight that I absolutely needed to see before I left Korea was the Demilitarised Zone!

The DMZ runs along the highly fortified border running between North and South Korea that has been in place since the end of the Korean War in 1953. At 250km/ 160 miles long the DMZ reaches out for 2km on either side of the entire length of the Military Demarcation Line. When you visit the DMZ you get to visit a few places, one being an observatory with binoculars where you can look over the DMZ and into North Korea. You clearly see the borders and the relative wilderness in-between them that make up the DMZ. You can also see Kijong-dong, a North Korean propaganda village built in the 1950's to give an illusion of a thriving community with the aim of convincing South Koreans to defect to the north. However scrutiny with modern telescopes have shown that these buildings are just concrete shells, with no glass windows or internal rooms. Lights are switched on and off at set times and people sweep the streets to give an illusion of activity. Further in the distance is a real North Korean city, but mostly you can just see farmland.

Four tunnels have been found going under the DMZ from North Korea into South Korea, and we visited one of them on the tour. North Korea claimed that the tunnels were dug for coal mining purposes, but the tunnels were dug into solid granite so it is safely assumed that they were actually to aid invasion into South Korea. We visited the 3rd tunnel that was discovered, in 1978. You have to don a hard hat, give up all of your belongings including your phones and cameras, and then head down 73 meters into the ground. The tunnel was damp and cramped, I hit my head several times so thank god for the hard hat! Eventually you reach the point where the tunnel was sealed off by the South Koreans before the Military Demarcation Line. There are three concrete walls blocking the tunnel, at the first wall you can watch a monitor showing a camera feed of the next wall, to make sure that it is not being breached by the North Koreans. According to North Korean defectors, there are around 40 tunnels under the DMZ, but only 4 have been discovered so far. The South Korean tour guides are happy to tell you all about the times that the North Koreans have broken the agreements and entered South Korea, but they don't tell you about all of the times that the South Koreans have made incursions into North Korea to sabotage their military facilities!

Given the history of the area there are quite a few interesting monuments and memorials in the area, including the monument to the families that were permanently separated by the placement of the Military Demarcation Line. People will still bring drinks and snacks to the monument on special occasions to remember their missing family members. There is also quite a poignant monument is the Statue of Peace to commemorate the "comfort women" of Korea, the women that were victims of sexual slavery in the war with Japan in WW2. This monument first appeared outside of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to put pressure on the Japanese government to acknowledge and honour the victims. This caused a diplomatic incident with the Japanese who have tried to have it removed, but more have sprung up over South Korea including in Busan and here at the DMZ.

Of course no tour is complete without visiting a gift shop. Some of the items on sale did make me raise an eyebrow, lots of machine guns and grenades on keyrings, magnets, mugs etc, and cartoon characters of both the North and South Korean border guards. The DMZ is apparently on very fertile land, so produce grown in the area is very popular. There were large sacks of DMZ rice, chocolate covered DMZ soy beans, and DMZ ginseng. I did enjoy a ginseng latte!Baca selengkapnya