This is a moment I have wanted for a very long time – I am standing on North Korean territory, the nation run from Pyongyang by the tyrannical Kim dynasty since 1948. Almost as speechless as the stony-faced South Korean guards inside. The truce itself was signed close by in July, 1953. Then it’s pretty much by the left, quick march out in to the heart of Panmunjom, across a road, past the South Korean soldiers on guard with their trademark aggressive stance and into the light blue hut where both sides meet for talks.
The bus pulls up at the Panmunjom visitor building and we are herded by soldiers into two crocodiles on a flight of stairs. Scared? No, but definitely a little apprehensive – it’s the first time I’ve been in what is still technically a war zone and six soldiers from both sides have died here in flashpoints since 1953. There are a number of rules on the DMZ tour including no jeans and “no shaggy hair” so we Westerners don’t appear too decadent to the North Koreans.īriefing over, UN visitor badge acquired, you head off on a military bus to Panmunjom, passing more minefields and the main anti-tank defensive wall, which runs for 160 miles across the Korean peninsula. After the briefing there’s another wake-up call – you must read and sign United Nations form UNC REG 551-1, which advises you the visit will “entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action”. The base is manned mainly by South Korean soldiers and they must all be martial arts black belts. Poignantly, it shows the writers from the Times and the Daily Telegraph both died on the same day, Aug– their jeep hit a landmine. I’d earlier stopped off at Bongseo-ri where the Unification Park has a number of war memorials, including one to the journalists killed covering the Korean conflict. There is also a Korean War era train riddled with 1,020 bullet holes after it was caught up in a battle.īizarrely, and perhaps to try to introduce a sense of normality, there’s a small funfair near the bridge viewing point. The Civilian Control Area or CCA (as you’d expect, there’s a lot of military jargon in these parts) is where you get the first inkling of what lies ahead – gun emplacements surrounded by razor wire and signs emphatically reminding us that we are to take “No Pictures”. Here marks the start of the South Korean outer defences for the DMZ. It’s the one point on the border where there are simply 2in high concrete markers on the ground to indicate the border between the divided Koreas.ĭescribed as the scariest place on earth by US President Bill Clinton, it certainly gets your attention when the tour bus from Seoul, the South Korean capital, first stops at Imjingak to see the Freedom Bridge, where PoWs were exchanged.
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