9km before the border, about 6 miles, you go through your first military inspection point. This is a picture of what the road looks like after you go through this checkpoint. To deter cars from making a run for it, they've set up barriers on alternate sides of the road and you weave through them for about half a mile. The bus driver we had today gets tons and tons of credit for some of the maneuvering we did today. Hairpin turns up some mountains into the little village to get to the observation point and weaving in and out of these things is like your worst driving test nightmare. When they end, it's just completely flat, pretty much 'til you get to the border.
After this, we went and ate a quick lunch at a little rest stop kind of place. Western toilets were a very pleasant surprise and much welcomed after our bus ride. I've still got a bad cough so I was drinking tea and thoroughly regretted finishing it off about halfway through the trip. Korean coach buses seem to be lacking the restroom amenities that buses at home do, so I was quite pleased when we finally arrived. This towel is one of the only souvenirs that actually said anything about the tunnel or Panmunjom, everything else was pretty much Korea in general kind of stuff. You can also buy DMZ rice and other North Korean goods like soybean powder (the area we were in was famous for it) and other little odds and ends.
From there we went to Dorasan Station, the northernmost train station in South Korea, and what is hoped to one day run through unified Korea and all the way to Northern Europe, perhaps stretching as far as London. When this will happen, you never know, but they've got big plans. They started construction in 2002 and "Bushy" came for the groundbreaking ceremony and signed a piece of rail, I forget what they're actually called. In the picture of the sign pointing left to Pyongyang (capital of the North) and Seoul (capital of the South) you can see Bush and then-Korean-president Kim Dae Jung. Photos like this are all over commemorating the big event. This is also a picture of the ticket gate - note the sign to Pyongyang. Right now, the station has a train going through it 3 times a day, but we weren't really sure where it went or what it was for. There was a timetable, and a ticket window, but I don't think the place is actually open to passenger travel yet. The train did appear once while we were there though. Comes from Seoul and goes right back we think. This is also me, another intern - Dorothy, and the guard. I don't know how amused he was to be taking pictures. After you go past him, you go downstairs to their immigrations/security area, which is fully built and simply lacks the actual hardware such as computers, electrical outlets, desks for people to sit at inside the booths, etc. But all the signs have been made, as if it could be up and running in a month or so. All they need is a unified country for it to function for. The tracks I'm standing on stretch to North Korea which is just over the mountains.
After the station, we headed to the observation point, which was amazing. You walk into an auditorium and you are in a room with a giant window for a wall and there is Kaesong, North Korea, in all its superficial glory. We weren't sure if it was a propaganda village kind of set up or not, as is near the joint security area, but it's got some pretty tall buildings and lots of smaller ones, and a giant structure with a big North Korean flag flying atop it. Just across from it is the South Korean one, just as tall, just as big. You are not allowed to take pictures from inside the auditorium, though I have heard people sneak them - I didn't feel like risking my camera being confiscated. When you go outside, there are those machines where you put money in them and you can get a super-magnified look. So we put our money in and looked around, and saw a group of kids playing, perhaps a few people walking, but nothing else. Not a single car, not a single person working in a field or something, nothing. Only this small group of people in a small area. It felt really weird to be spying on them, which is essentially what we were doing. After a bunch of pictures of the sky, this is my one picture of North Korea, successfully taken after many tries of standing at the very edge of the photo line, which is about 15 ft from the watching area, and holding my camera as high as I could hoping I was aiming in the right direction. The pole on the right is North Korea. Notice the lack of trees after it and the fact that the mountains look pretty bare. This is because they've used all the trees for fuel pretty much.
Our last stop was probably the most shocking and most intense experience of the day. You are not allowed to bring cameras into this area, so I took a picture of the sign and you miss out on how hot I looked in my yellow construction hat. This is the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, built by North Koreans and discovered in 1978 after a defector told of North Korean plans to invade, and deemed to be the most dangerous because of the fact that its end, the side we entered on, is only 44 km from Seoul. It's just over 1600m long and we walked 260m of it. After donning the construction hat, you start down a very nice, bright tunnel for about 10 minutes so you can get down to 75m underground where the tunnel is. I heard there used be a small train you could take to go down into it, but I think you realize a lot more when you walk it. One end shows you where construction stopped after it was discovered by the South. You make a left, and start down the tunnel. About 6ft wide, it's supposed to be able to let 30,000 troops through per hour. I had to crouch through most of it, so it's probably about 5'5" and SUPER claustrophobic. There is some water leaking through some areas and a couple of factoids on plaques on the walls. You can see where the dynamite holes were and how it was dug. The walls were also coated with coal when discovered because the North Koreans, after denying it was constructed by them and saying that only the South was capable of doing something like this, said that it was a coal mine, despite the fact that the entire tunnel and surrounding areas are made of granite. "Just another example of North Korean two-sidedness" is what the sign said. I don't know how these pictures were taken, but they are indeed from inside the tunnel, so maybe you can get some idea of what we crouched through. Needless to say, we reached the dead end and hightailed it back out. The hike back out was exhausting (a steep incline for 10 min can be rough!) and as the day's last activity, we were pretty beat when we made it to the top. Can you imagine thousands of troops actually charging through it and invading Seoul? It's pretty scary that there are 4 of them, and the 4th was discovered by accident in 1990.
This is the group that we went with. We put down papers so we could sit down in the parking lot and introduce ourselves, what we're doing with the organization or what we thought of the trip, etc. (Something you think might've been done at the beginning of the trip instead of the end?) Apparently, the soldiers on duty thought we were up to something and came over and asked us to leave and stop whatever it was we had planned. They thought we were protesting or something. But once we explained that really, it was nothing, we got to stay for 10 minutes and then were promptly asked to leave. This is the unification sculpture in front of the building. It's supposed to be North and South Koreans pushing two halves of the world which symbolizes peace. The arch over it is the railway connecting everything and the shot next to it is of the inside of the sculpture. Both sides have the Korean peninsula, with the North raised on one side and the South raised on the other. When peace is achieved, the two sides can be put together and will fit perfectly. We also drove by one of the US army bases on the way out, kinda odd to see Americans up there, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The base had lots of recreation facilities outside, but all were grown over and hadn't been used in a very long time. The base actually looked to be in pretty poor condition, but I can't imagine that they get supply visits very often up there.
A long day. Promptly passed out on the bus on the way home, but really, really interesting and I only wish I understood more of what was said, even though I got a pretty good rundown from those who spoke English. I can only imagine what it was like for the defectors who were with us, but everyone talked about how great the experience was and how it made a lot of the work we do hit home.
No comments:
Post a Comment