We booked the cheap tour of the N / S Korean border and our opening photo is a testament to that. We didn’t get to see the actual Rock Soldiers who guard the South unflinchingly facing the less impressive soldiers in the North, so I hope my improv will go some way to satisfy any curiosity with respect to this topic. I may have slightly overdone the North’s uniform.
It was an interesting day as it’s not a regular occurrence that one gets to eyeball one of the 3 great Axis of Evil so with Malene in charge of front line espionage we checked out the current situation.
There were quite a few interesting aspects of the tour as we were taken deep down (75m vertically down) into a tunnel, one of four built by the north in attempts to infiltrate into the south. Hard to imagine how they cut through solid granite with just dynamite and minimum tools.
Buildings are camouflaged so even at close quarters they are hard to spot.
Although the situation seems hopeless at the moment, the symbols to reunite this divided country are everywhere, as for example the railway station ending at the border…..
But this place is no joke and we are reminded of this by looking out of the bus window where the little red markers map out mine fields, and where two guards were badly injured just a day or so before our visit.
But there is always hope if the will is there.
And never forget the souvenirs
The DMZ is now Korea’s largest tourism attraction according to our guide, 1.2m visitors in June of 2014 alone. That is one nice little earner.
De militarized but it’s crawling with troops! I think it’s the bit in between they refer to.
Rock Soldier