Day 2: Kaesong and the Demilitarized Zone

The following morning is more clear, but not actually clear.  I think the whole continent must be that way this time of year, it was the same in China.  We start the day with a buffet style breakfast at 0730 at the hotel and head for the DMZ at 0800.  It's a 200km drive.  The highway is rough and has people performing menial labor all along its expanses. Very few cars out here.  Most people seem to travel down the highway on foot.  As we approach the DMZ, there are several military checkpoints (4 or 5 in total) with armed soldiers and all.  In North Korea, one isn't allowed to so much as leave the town they reside in without written permission from the government.  In most cases when the minders show this permission paper to the soldiers through the window of our SUV they wave us right through the checkpoint, but occasionally we're subject to considerable scrutiny.  It's funny how the most inappropriate songs start running through one's head in such circumstances.

"They're gonna hang me high

Silhouetted against the sky

While swinging in the wind I pray

That she will come and carry me away

To somewhere safe, somewhere safe."

The tour of the demilitarized zone starts off with a lecture from some high-ranking North Korean military officer.  The North and South side are face to face here, it's considered the most dangerous border in the world as the nations are still officially at war.

The officer attributes the separation of Korea to the Americans and warns that at any given moment things can turn ugly again at the drop of a hat.

A view of the actual border between North and South Korea, it runs down the middle of the blue buildings. 

North Korean soldiers stand on their side.  Apparently South Korean and American soldiers often don't make an appearance and watch the area through cameras instead.

Me with the North Korean border guards, the door behind us leads to South Korea.

This is the table that talks are held between the North Korean side and the Americans.  The officer has us on the American side.  The unpleasant lady is North Korean Worker's Party member, and the cute girl with the glasses is one of our North Korean minders.  

The actual border between North and South Korea, the side with the gravel is South Korea.

During the officer's speech, I reached across the table and shook hands with folks from the "other side."  It gave the North Koreans (including the military personnel) a good laugh.  All of the Chinese and North Koreans took turns getting pictures of shaking with the Americans across the negotiation table.  Later that day we had lunch one table away from North Korean Worker's Party members who were at the DMZ with us earlier; they were talking about this scene.  I went on the trip hoping to leave a good impression on the citizens of that country.  I think it happened here. 

It's not all smiles though.  This the axe North Korean soldiers used to murder two American military officers back in the 1970's, proudly displayed in a museum.  The Americans sought to chop down a tree that obstructed the view between two of their observation posts.  North Korean soldiers showed up, and beat the American officers and killed them using the axes the Americans brought to cut the tree with.

The officer who runs the North Korean side of the DMZ.

After the DMZ, we checked in at the Kaesong Folk Hotel.  We were the only ones staying their, our Russian-made UAZ Patriot SUV was the only car in the parking lot.  I'd get one of these if it were available in the States; it takes a beating and doesn't quit.

Propaganda poster seen from the entrance of the hotel.

Our room at the Kaesong hotel.  Though equipped with a TV, mini-fridge, AC unit, lamps, etc there weren't even any sockets to plug these appliances into; it's all for show apparently.  The sink in the bathroom was not connected to any plumbing or even affixed to anything.  It could be moved freely to any wall or corner.  None of the light switches did anything. 

This is a side of North Korea that few people are even aware of.  There's actually quite a few rather ancient sites, temples and palaces built several hundred years ago.  

A tomb of one of the ancient Korean kings.  

The minder's say tourists aren't usually allowed at this tomb.  Doesn't jive with the fact that there are public restrooms there with English signs and a souvenir/refreshment shop that accepts foreign currency.  All of the gift shops sell essentially the same exact stuff, with very few exceptions, and virtually every stop on the trip closes with dropping into a gift shop.  Even by the fifth or sixth time you step into a gift shop, the minders and salespeople still expect you to buy things even though you've been offered this same stuff several times before.

Probably the nicest scene in Kaesong... the rest of the city is very run down.  Crumbling concrete buildings everywhere, windows without glass, people defecating in the streets. A lot of people engaging in all manner of aimless drudgery, such trimming back the weeds and grass from the sides of the road with pocket knives.  Naturally our minders didn't allow photos of anything "negative."

The site of what used to be a massive palace, destroyed by the Mongols centuries ago.  The minders themselves they've never been here before and are seeing it for the first time thanks to it being put on our itinerary.  

A photo of us with one of our minders.

Idyllic looking map of our hotel in Kaesong.

Actual photo of our hotel in Kaesong

The map doesn't include the wall that surrounds the place, keeping it quite separate from the city around.  There's a gate with a gate keeper to make sure no one comes or goes until they're supposed.  Our room was right next to wall and we could hear what was going on in a house on the other side.  A Korean woman sang songs to her kids at night.  Don't know what the words meant but it was nice to experience a little bit of the real Korea without the minders' knowledge and superivision.

The fridge you see in the background is apparently for show.  It's not plugged in and all of the products with in it are warm.

Close up of another ancient royal tomb.