101 Places Not to See Before You Die - Catherine Price [16]
Carry Nation with bible, hatchet
Wikipedia Commons
Chapter 19
The Third Infiltration Tunnel at the DMZ
Advertised by tourist brochures as the “most fortified border on Earth that only Korea can offer,” the demilitarized zone is anthropologically fascinating, not to mention one of the world’s only active battle lines to have its own gift shop. (Sample souvenirs: DMZ key chains, child-size camouflage suits, duty-free alcohol.) There is a welcome center; there is a movie theater. Concerned about providing fodder for North Korean propaganda photos, the DMZ even has its own dress code; visitors are forbidden from wearing flip-flops, tank tops, or shorts that “expose the buttocks.” It is not entirely clear what the people who wrote the dress code have against leather riding chaps, but they’re not kidding: wear the wrong thing, and you’re not going on the tour.
Providing that your pants meet protocol, you’ll sign a release acknowledging that you could get shot, watch a slideshow presentation and briefing, and eventually be led to the Joint Security Area, which is the only area in the DMZ where North and South Korean troops stand face-to-face.
The border in this section is less Berlin Wall than it is sidewalk curb: a half foot tall and straddled by a group of squat, powder-blue UN buildings. These were originally designed as neutral spots for negotiations. But since visitors are allowed to go inside, most of the negotiations going on these days are among members of large tour groups figuring out where in the building they need to stand to get a picture of themselves in what is technically North Korea. Like most of the DMZ tour, this comes highly recommended. But do not bother with the Third Infiltration Tunnel.
That’s not because it is uninteresting. The Third Infiltration Tunnel—or the Third Tunnel of Aggression, as it’s more poetically known—is the third discovered underground passageway (of an estimated dozen or so) that North Korea’s Kim Jong Il ordered to be blasted from North to South Korea in preparation for a potential invasion. When South Korea found this particular tunnel in 1978, North Korea claimed that it was merely a coal mine—even going so far as to have part of the granite walls painted black. Unconvinced, the South blocked the tunnel with three barricades and then, as a capitalist “screw you,” opened it as a tourist site.
The resulting experience is not for claustrophobics, people prone to panic attacks, or anyone with an aversion to being buried alive. First, you’re led to a train platform and told to put all your belongings into a small cubby. Next, you’re given a hard hat and herded onto a small trolley. That’s probably the part where you should start asking questions, like: why are you on a train? Or, more important, where are you going? But most tourists, lulled into complacence by the
trolley’s similarity to those in Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World,” don’t think to be inquisitive.
Instead, the claustrophobic visitor will experience an unexpected rush of terror as the train begins a 240-foot descent underground through a narrow tunnel blasted out of solid rock. As your little train chugs lower and lower, you wonder how the giggling tourists around you can seem so oblivious to the lack of emergency exits and escape hatches built into the suffocating walls pushing in on you from all sides. Several horrible minutes later, the trolley finally reaches the bottom and you’re given several minutes to walk to the tunnel’s main attraction—the barricade between North and South Korea. (Spoiler alert: it looks like a wall.) The good part about the tunnel is that, at 6½ by 6½ feet, it’s slightly less oppressive than the train ride, but the extra headroom isn’t worth