DMZ!

The DMZ is one of the major must-sees in Korea. The 2km wide strip of no-man's-land has been the buffer between North and South Korea since the war (sort of) ended in 1953. It's become something of a nature preserve, since nobody's been allowed in there for 50 years, and apparently, conservationist groups are poised to make it a protected area (in a different sense) the minute hostilities cease. Now, though, it's heavily guarded, heavily mined, and off-limits unless you're with a guided tour. My friend, Molly, and I went with the USO--pricey, but reputed to be the best by far.

I had to get up at 6, and roll into clothes, past the kitchen, and out the door in one fluid motion to get to Camp Kim, the US Army base on the other side of downtown Seoul in time for 7am check-in. Not good news, exactly, but acceptable. The real bad news came once we were on the bus and underway. Our tour guide, a middle-aged Korean lady with excellent, but heavily accented English, informed us that the slide show, supposedly superb, had been suspended due to swine flu paranoia. Then she told us about the "temporary" buildings, erected along the border so the two sides could enter from their own territory and talk. Normally, tours are allowed to go inside and step into North Korea, but we wouldn't be doing that because of swine flu. Next was Checkpoint 3, site of the axe murders in 1976, and vantage point into the DMZ and North Korea. But that's under construction, so we're not allowed to go there. So I've spent $70 (and I really mean dollars), and we're just going for a bus ride? Seems like the USO might have mentioned this when I signed up, but if my mantra for the year is "whatever", I guess I have to apply it to Americans as well (though with a little more bile).

We were greeted at Panmunjom Joint Security Area by South Korean soldiers in camo surgical masks. They let us through the gate, where the bus then had to zigzag, Nintendo style, through a gauntlet of concrete barriers, then let us all off by the gift shop to board another bus, which would take us and our American soldier to where the action is (or isn't, hopefully). The DMZ looked very pastoral, under brilliant sunshine and a gentle dusting of snow. Ringed by wire fences and punctuated by concrete barriers, designed to fall into the road if "the signal" is given. The chain link fences were full of rocks, painted red and white like Polish half-moon cookies. Soldiers check the rocks every day, and if they're out of place, they know someone's been rattling the fence. Photography is forbidden.

We started with the Freedom House, built for family reunions between North and South, but never used. Behind that was what everyone thinks of as the DMZ: blue buildings lined up along the boundary line, soldiers posturing and staring blankly from either side. Being too contaminated to go inside, we were allowed to take pictures, ask questions, and nose around, as long as we didn't a) go off the steps of Freedom House, or b) gesture/point/make faces at the North Korean soldier studying us through binoculars. Our American, Specialist Strickland, explained what we saw...that the South Koreans, in their taekwondo stance, were nose-to-corrugated steel with the buildings so as to present less of a target; that any movements we made directed at the North Korean soldier would be interpreted as mocking and grounds for an international incident; that the blue building belonging to the North is known colloquially as the monkey house because the DPRK soldiers make gestures and faces at the UN guys through the windows; and that the noise you hear when a South Korean soldier goes by is from the ballbearings in his boots, a holdover from a long-ago fight where the South Korean army was badly outnumbered and trying to make themselves seem more formidable.

We climbed a little pagoda next to Freedom House, our consolation prize for skipping Checkpoint 3, to look at Freedom Village. Each side has a small, carefully controlled, settlement inside the DMZ. North Korea's is reputedly empty, save for the blaring propaganda and the flag that makes Perkins' look like a postage stamp. South Korea's is inhabited by 219 people, all of whom have ancestors that farmed the area before the war, and all of whom agree to strict curfews and heavy surveillance in exchange for government subsidies.

After a visit to the Duty-Free gift shop, they put us back on our original bus and shuttled us to the observation deck. We sat in an unheated auditorium with a wall of windows facing North Korea and listened to the guide from the other bus unintelligibly narrate the panorama (photography forbidden). I did glean that the towers all along were for jamming broadcast signals that may wander over from the modern world, and that North Korea is completely defoliated due to heating with wood and the government eliminating places to hide. Methinks it may be more the latter than the former. The border is starkly visible, with the South as forested as a New England hillside, and the North more comparable to New Mexico. Outside on the actual deck, you can look through binoculars at the railing, or stay 15 feet back and hold your camera in the air to take photos from behind the yellow line. I did both...I got a couple good shots, and saw a person walking in one of the villages.

We went back to the rest stop for lunch and more souvenirs (and I learned from a Scotsman that I can legitimately claim to have visited 12 countries), then back again through winding mountain roads interspersed with fields of tall, elegant birds, to the Third Tunnel. Between 1974 and 1990, four tunnels were discovered under the DMZ, all pointing toward Seoul. The 3rd Tunnel, found in 1978, is about a mile long and 500 feet below ground. North Koreans claimed that the South actually dug it, but when drill marks and other details proved this impossible, they spread coal on the walls and insisted they were mining. Since hordes of tourists pay money to creep through it, our guide says it IS a mine--a gold mine for the South. Photography is forbidden. There's not a lot to see, anyway...it's a damp cave full of tourists bent over and wearing hard hats to protect from the low ceiling (mine did scrape a couple times)...more of a "guess where I am" experience than anything. They have highlighted all of the scores of drill marks with yellow paint, in case you have any doubts about the direction they point.

It was a good trip, though I'm still a bit frosted about missing the slide show and the chance to go to North Korea. Like everything here, I feel like I saw it in a bit of a daze. I may compromise my principles and do it again next summer, by which point one can only hope the flu frenzy will have faded.