On Thursday we visited the Demilitarised Zone, bordering North Korea. On the Korean side, there has been a very modern development of a tourist area that surrounds the zone. Beautifully landscaped and many facilities and things to see. There's a large observation tower. Telescopes are provided for a view of the mountainy North Korea, and the demilitarised zone itself.
There's an interesting exhibit of a huge old train engine which was derailed after bullet fire during the Korean War in 1950. Since then no train has run on this line which previously joined North and South Korea. The train was repaired and refurbished and now stands as one of the monuments of the time.
An interesting aspect is that nearby there is an ultra-modern train station that now connects with Seoul and, technically with Europe.
We took a bus tour of the demilitarised zone. Very strict security was observed. It was interesting just to pass through this area, with a few stops along the way. One of the stops was at an Observation Tower. Telescopes were provided to see into North Korea. From this observation point you can see the Korean flag and the North Korean flag.
By far the most interesting stop was at what is called the 3rd Tunnel. Even when this area was made a demilitarised zone, North Korea built four tunnels from different locations - all ending around Seoul. The tunnel you can visit is the 3rd Tunnel. These tunnels are huge; capable of having 30,000 troops pass through in one hour. The obvious intention behind building the tunnels was at some stage to invade Korea and take Seoul.
You walk down a very, very steep incline to a level that is about 450 metres below the ground. Then you continue along the tunnel to get some sense of it. Quite a chilling experience.
The whole area around the demilitarised zone is being developed my Korea as an ecological area. It has become a very big tourist attraction.
During the visit and afterwards, it's hard to imagine that the Korean War took place just 60 years ago.
