Travel
Tuesday, 11 August 2009 11:08
Written by Ned Kelly

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Driving past gently rolling hills and green fields and through wide valleys down which crystal-clear rivers meander it is hard to believe you are on the road to what US President Bill Clinton described as “the scariest place on Earth.” Yet we are just miles from the most heavily fortified border in the world. The Demilitarized Zone that crosses the 38th parallel north and divides the two Koreas bristles with watchtowers, razor wire, landmines, and tank-traps, while on either side of its 248 km (151 mile) length two million troops face off, finger on the trigger, ready to go to war at the drop of a grenade. Or rather continue a war that has never officially finished, for the armistice agreement that signaled an end to hostilities was never followed by a peace treaty, the two Koreas technically remaining at war to this day.

The 38th parallel was originally set as the boundary between the Soviet-occupied north and US-occupied south areas of Korea at the end of World War II, cutting the peninsular in two, and became a de facto international border - and one of the most tense fronts in the Cold War - upon the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in 1948. Continual cross-border skirmishes and raids escalated to full-scale warfare when North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. Three years and over three million lost lives later, international intervention had pushed the front of the war back to near the 38th parallel, and in the ceasefire of July 27, 1953, the DMZ was created as each side agreed in the armistice to move their troops back 2 km from the front line, creating a buffer zone 4 km wide.

Arriving at the checkpoint we disembark from the bus, hand in our passports (we will not get them back until we return) and cross into the DMZ on foot, all the while eyed by a soldier who, lounging in a motorbike sidecar and dressed in outmoded People’s Korean Army uniform at once evokes images of old war films, and provokes anxiety, given that his stern stare is none too friendly. Boarding the bus again we pass down a road enclosed on either side by high-walls above which huge cubes of concrete rest on chocks that are ready to be pulled away in the event of hostilities, bringing the cubes crashing down onto the road and blocking the path of an advancing army. In the near distance farm hands are actually working the fields of no-mans-land, while on the horizon a North Korean flag flutters some 160 meters up a flagpole that is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the worlds tallest.

A short drive later we arrive in Panmunjom and enter the room that the armistice was signed in. Built especially for the purpose, it is huge - the North saw the ceasefire as a significant victory and made the most of having humbled the mighty USA. They still do, our guide making that very point in slightly different wording three or four sentences in a row. Around the room is a museum dedicated to this unique strip of land, including one particularly grizzly exhibit - the axe of the Axe Murder Incident of 1976 – possibly the most gruesome episode in DMZ history.

From here we move on to possibly the most iconic place in the military world, the Joint Security Area. If you haven’t heard of it and are looking for a point of reference, think the Checkpoint Charlie of the east. It is here, and only here, that North and South Korean forces stand face-to-face. Watching the compatriots-turned-combatants eye-balling each other all day is engrossing, the body-language fascinating: the North Koreans rigid in their outmoded uniform; the South Koreans, with an Americanized swagger about them, hiding their eyes behind aviator shades. It is at the same time surreal and absurd. And yet very real, and very chilling in that. Here the Military Demarcation Line that goes down the center of the DMZ indicating exactly where the front was when the armistice was signed is marked by a thin, ankle-high strip of concrete. Cross it, and you will be shot.

Instead we are led into one of the seven buildings that straddle the border and used for communication and talks between the the sides. They are the only places you can cross the border. While we are inside some curious South Korean soldiers sidle up to the window, cup there hands and peer in. Their North Korean counterparts walk up to challenge them and they beat a faux-nonchalant retreat. Their movements are reminiscent of animals on the Serengeti, cautiously circling, sizing each other up.

As we leave the hut we notice a group of tourists on the South Korean side and give them a wave. They do not respond. Do not take wave, do not take photographs, do not do anything that might aggravate the North Korean bogeymen, they have been told. The irony is not lost on us that over this side we are all feeling pretty relaxed, sharing jokes with each other, chatting with and even posing for photos with the PKA soldiers, while over there they are probably petrified.

As we are leaving we are reminded that it is not only fear that this place elicits from those that see it, “I hope you have found visiting this place interesting,” says our tour guide Miss Han, “but please remember to us Koreans whose dream it to see our country reunified, it is the saddest place on earth.”

Check out the first installment of The DPRK Files: The Ryugyong Hotel right here

Check out the third installment of The DPRK Files: Big Kim right here

Check out the fourth installment of The DPRK Files: Children's Palace, right here.

 Ned Kelly has just returned from the DPRK, watch out for excerpts and extras in the coming weeks from the trip as we build up to the big article in the September issue of That's Shanghai

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