DMZ (Part 3 - FINAL)As I said, Imjingak is a clever exploitation of the 'aura' of the DMZ. There's a tourist complex here, with the rooftop providing a platform to observe North Korean territory with powerful binoculars. It's particularly deserted today, save for our black MPV, thanks to the heightened tension due to the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong just 3 weeks ago. To venture closer to the border, visitors must leave cars here, register and board special buses for a fee, but the tour has been curtailed due to the prevailing 'amber alert'.
It's a bit of effort climbing up to the top, passing two floors of fancy restaurants and shops.
Pretty decent view from up here, and the mountains on the horizon are in North Korea. A tip: if a mountain is bald, then it's most likely North Korea because the trees have all been cut down for cooking fuel by the impoverished people. Suddenly I hear bursts of gunfire ... trrrrr! ... trrrrr! ... trrrrr! ... coming from beyond the hills. Hopefully just a live exercise, but it hits me that we are indeed in a hostile war zone. War can break out at any time.
The rail line curves into the core DMZ area and on to Pyongyang (220km away), ready to service traffic between it and Seoul (60km behind me), if that ever happens. There's even a spanking new, functional Korail station just before the border, but is now still deserted.
Another South Korean army post, next to the frozen Imjin river. Patrols by foot and jeep are very frequent.
A useful map to orientate clueless visitors. Shows how close we are to the hostile border.
On the other side of the Imjingak visitor centre, there are funfair, memorials, sculptures, statues and Korean War-era military hardware such as tanks and planes on display. They have done pretty well in making this spot a major tourist attraction, but nobody's here today for obvious reasons ... except foolhardy us!
Saying thanks to the Americans for their very significant Korean War role ...
... plus a special one.
It's getting dark, we have another place to visit, and soon we are back on the highway which skirts the edge of the Imjin river, heavily fortified since the other river bank belongs to North Korea. This is a stretch of the river DMZ.
Our destination is the Odusan Observatory, built atop a hill overlooking the Han and Imjin rivers, and North Korea beyond them.
At Odusan, I view the confluence of the Imjin river (which we followed from Imjingak to the right) and the mighty Han river. Bottom right and extreme left are South Korean territories, the rest in front of us, North Korea. The Han river then flows into the Yellow Sea straight ahead (when it's not frozen like today) and is the site of several previous naval skirmishes between the two sides.
At the narrowest point, it's only 3.2km separating North and South. From Odusan, I train my lens on North Korea. Scattered white buildings, but no signs of activities. No traffic, looks like a ghost town, these are probably show buildings only. I saw something similar when I crossed the border from West Berlin into East Berlin in 1988 - vacant buildings.
Below me, at a promontory where the two rivers meet, an army installation. Not surprised if they have artillery down there, ready to pound North Korea.
I look to the south towards Seoul and on the horizon, there's a new city.
This is Paju, home to LG Display with its huge modern LCD plant. If war breaks out, Paju could be the first casualty. It's virtually a bordertown.
As the Sun sets on an extremely cold winter evening, the rivers and mountains at this dangerous frontier make a surreal picture.
I glance back at North Korea, and the dusk makes it look even more mysterious. I wonder how a battle here would be.
Look, the mountains still have trees, so they must be in South Korea.
It's probably -10C now, colder when the occasional wind blows, but I quickly take off my beanie for a photoshoot with North Korea, just 4km behind me - the closest I'd ever get, until I make a trip to Pyongyang itself one fine day.
Brief DMZ visit done, Mr Han punches the GPS in his warm car to take us back to Seoul. What can I say, it has been a soul-searching trip, pun unintended, to see first-hand the only separated state in the world, and a hostile one at that.
As we glide along the modern expressway back to Seoul, the intimidating fencing and barbed wire reminds us the fact that the two Koreas are still at war, and that the heavily-armed North is just a stone's throw away from dynamic Seoul, across the river literally. They are holding Seoul at ransom, while their own capital Pyongyang is at a relatively safe distance of 250km away. I do hope they'd become friends one fine day, after all they are the same people sharing the same proud history and traditions for almost 2,000 years. They are unwilling victims on the superpowers' chessboard.
> THE END
