A Walk on the Edge: Exploring the Korean DMZ

When I booked a trip to Thailand, I chose a daytime layover of 12 hours in Seoul’s Incheon airport so me, my husband Cody, and 8-year-old daughter Skye could leave the airport and see a slice of Korea. Incheon Airport sponsors free or inexpensive transit tours that offer a variety of experiences in and around Seoul. About three weeks before our departure date I looked at what tours were available, and everything was full besides a tour to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to see the world’s most heavily armored frontier.

Hmm did I want to take my 8-year-old to the DMZ between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north, and the Republic of Korea to the south? Did I want to go there? Umm, OK why not? (I can think of many reasons why not). But it turned out to be one of the most interesting experiences of our three-week trip, and of any trip for that matter.

We arrived at Incheon Airport after our red-eye flight from Phuket, Thailand, and checked in at the tour desk. The employee gave us directions to leave the airport as if we were entering South Korea and to go to a desk in the passenger check-in area to join our tour. This was not an easy experience in our sleepy, jet-lagged state, but we made it there with minutes to spare.

Enthusiastic tour guides greeted us and gave us long, black, faux fur lined coats to protect us from the fridged wind chill, and badges to show we were part of the tour. After stocking up on snacks from an airport convenience store, including a packaged cookie called “What’s the Better?”, we boarded a small bus with eight other people and began the hour-long journey to the DMZ. While taking in the sights of Seoul, our humorous tour guide taught us about modern day Korea, historical Korea, and the war which led to the country splitting into North and South. She also educated us on K-pop and Gangnam style, which refers to Seoul’s wealthiest district called Gangnam and is about enjoying the finer things in life.

The South Korean government allows a limited number of visitors to the DMZ facilities each day. You must have a reservation through a tour company, like Incheon Airport. When we arrived, we stopped at a checkpoint and a young Korean military officer boarded the bus. We held up our passports open to our pictures, and he checked our documents. Another officer did the same at a check point as we left the area. It felt both foreboding and incredibly easy to access this heavily guarded, constantly monitored buffer zone. This is not a place to misplace your passport, as entire tour will be held at the check point until your situation is resolved.

Our tour was to the 3rd Tunnel and the Dora Observatory. There are other areas you can visit as well, such as the Gamaksan Chulleong Bridge and Imjingak Peace Park. The military tourism feel is a juxtaposition between capitalism to the south, and communism to the north.

At the 3^rd Tunnel we watched a short movie about the Korean War. It painted a picture of a hostile North Korea with black and white images of soldiers marching in step, images of crying children and war set to an ominous soundtrack. In contradiction, South Korea’s images and narrative depicted a powerful desire for peace with colorful images of smiling people, and baby animals frolicking in the lush vegetation of the DMZ. I glanced side-eyed at Cody. I felt like I was in high school history class watching an example of war propaganda.

After the movie we walked far down under the DMZ in a small, humid, freezing cold tunnel, round sides dripping and covered in lichen, to a slab of concrete sealing the tunnel from North Korea. There is a small window in which you can peer up at the vegetation of the DMZ, with North Korea just beyond. On our way back, about 100 US soldiers were marching down the tunnel. It’s a surreal feeling to be on a tour in a place near a government that would like to annihilate you.

After a frigid walk through the tunnel, we climbed back onto the bus and rode a short distance to the Dora Observatory. Here it turns into a Disneyesque, bizarrely entertaining experience. There is a large fancy building where you take an elevator to the top and walk out to a platform with telescopes facing North Korea meant for tourists to peer at a North Korean village. Bonus if you see an actual, real live North Korean!

The guide told us about the flagpole fight between North and South Korea. As the story goes, one side erected a flagpole to be taller than the other side. Then the other side installed a taller flag. And the other side put up an even taller pole. Eventually South Korea acquiesced, and North Korea boasts the tallest flagpole in the world. It looks cartoonish next to the squat, square, sparce grey buildings of the village it sits in.

The tour guide made the rounds taking pictures of tourists with the most closed off country in the world as our backdrop. Then we went inside to a large room with stadium seating facing North Korea, so you can really lean back and get comfortable as you gaze at oppression. If trying to get a glimpse of a starving North Korean villager makes you hungry, you can visit a café with floor to ceiling windows where you can enjoy the view from your table as you sip a coffee and nibble a muffin.

We boarded the bus again and made our way back to Incheon airport as the tour guide told jokes about Korean life and culture. After a few minutes she was making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact with me, which was confusing until I looked behind me and realized I was the only person awake.

A week after our tour, North Korea launched rockets that closed the DMZ to tourists.