Demilitarized Zone

Taking a pix with the MPs. This was allowed.	Taking a pix of the army's bunkers. This was NOT allowed.

Welcome to the world's most heavily guarded border. I'll try and keep it short.
Right from the start we could see from one of the roads leading out of Seoul that the traffic is getting thinner and thinner. Finally just before reaching one of the first stations the highway was completely empty (aside from our bus). Very eerie feeling. Also the sides of the highway were peppered with barricades, barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles. We crossed the Imjingang river and went through the last check point where our passports were verified by the MP's. We visited a bunch of sites, including an observatory station where you can get a bird's eye view on the entire DMZ area and even see some north korean villages. We also visited one of the tunnels discovered by the south koreans (and built by the north koreans for a possible invasion). It's only 50km from Seoul.

From the last checkpoint we were strictly forbidden to use our cameras or recording devices and I would soon find out the consequences of breaking this rule. There were certain spots where they were allowed, usually parking lots and specially marked areas (where you couldn't see anything anyway, so what was the point?). Before entering the tunnel we needed to leave all belongings and cameras at the door. I managed to sneak mine hidden in the palm of my hand (same way I do it at concerts) and got off four shots inside the tunnel w/out being spotted. I had to fall behind my group on purpose and dodge the surveillance cameras. That gave me a boost of confidence for the next area, Panmunjeom and the Joint Security Area.

This is the only place where the North and South meet and where South Korean civilians are not allowed. So here we got a military escort. This made things a lot more tricky because I did not come all the way here and not be able to get a picture memory of it. So when I stealthly pull out my oversized bulky junky camera and snap a shot of the area I get spotted by an MP and get a lenghty lecture from him. And of top of this he makes me delete ALL the pictures that I had in my camera. Luckly I had the foresight to anticipate this in advance and switched SD cards before arriving at the JSA. So I was only forced to erase 2 JSA pics and 5 of the tunnel area pics (not the ones in the tunnel itself, those were on my other card). So no big loss, but my heart did start racing while I was lectured :) Getting in trouble surrounded by army bases and soldiers everywhere is not a smart thing to do.

Well that was it. On our way home we had a sweetie of a tour guide who took some of us to a great korean restaurant (we paid our own of course). But this was not part of the tour and she stayed and joked and talked with us all afternoon. Let's see, from what she told me I had the dried pollack fish (spicy as hell), some Bulgogi that we all shared (broiled beef cooked at the table) and of course the Kimchi (pickled/fermented vegetables, in this case radish). Also hot as well.