World Wide Willard

Here I am at Dorasan Railway station, not quite the "Road to nowhere" but very close to it - in the hopes that one day there would be a rail service between South and North Korea (and thence the rest of the EurAsian Continent) this station was built, partially by public subscription, to serve as the bridge between the two sides of Korea. It descibes itself as "not the last station in the South, but the first station towards the North", sadly there are no trains to Pyongyang (or indeed anywhere else, at the moment) from here, but if they needed a picture in the dictionary under "Hope" I think this would be it....

45 votes

2.889

Even though we had a very short 15 minutes here, I thought I ought to buy a platform ticket and go and see what was out there....

39 votes

3

...yes, there really are platforms here, and rails, and every other facility you would expect of a mainline railway station. Except trains.

2 votes

2.5

Security restrictions (you can't see the yellow "No photos beyond this line" line because Ken has all of his toes on it taking this picture) mean that I've had to enlist the WillardKeeper as my assistant! This is Dora Observatory, where the South Korean Millitary watch (or perhaps watched, as I'd imagine satelite imagery is much more effective thesedays) North Korean Millitary, no doubt in turn, watching them....

43 votes

3.07

No Bears Allowed! in the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel (or luggage, or cameras, or pretty much anything - so here is my home for 45 minutes...). However, my extremely acute bear-hearing allows me to hear the distinctive "CLUNK, ouch, swear" repeatedly as Ken bangs his head (thankfully wrapped in a compulsory hard hat) against the tunnel roof. The access tunnel is long and steep, the actual infiltration tunnel, dug by North Korean troops, is narrow and not very tall (like, we presume, the troops it was built for). It ends in an austere steel-plate with an observation hole and a rather machine-gun shaped slot (covered in "NO PHOTOGRAPH" stickers). I don't think I'd want to be a North Korean conscript coming down that tunnel thesedays....

4 votes

2.75

In the background you can see "Freedom Bridge" where POWs were exchanged after the Armistice in the Korean War (not the end, as we are acutely aware, here in the DMZ, surrounded by barbed wire and minefields, the Korean War is technically still "on" as there was only ever a ceasefire, and even that was technically nullified last week when Kim-Jong-Un decided to unilaterally withdraw from the Armistice agreement...)

34 votes

3.088

We are treated to a lunch of Korean Bibimbap as we move from our DMZ tour to the somewhat more sensitive JSA tour to Camp Bonifas and Panmunjom - what was that about condemned Bears and hearty meals?

19 votes

3

Slightly more cramped seating on this tour bus, and much more restrictive on photo opportunities...

5 votes

2.2

This is my seat for the actual Panmunjom part of the tour as it is most definitely No Bears Allowed, I'll be absent from the next few photos as I'll be here guarded by US (technically UN Millitary Police) Troops whilst my Human companions march in tightly controlled "two by two" formation out to Hut 3.

40 votes

2.9

So, this is the place where North and South meet, if you are on the right of the line of microphones on the conference table, you are technically in North Korea, I'm told both of my human travelling companions were. The figure at the end of the table is not a waxwork, he is a real, live, South Korean Soldier, though other than that fact, he behaved exactly like a wax model the entire time. No, you cannot sit on the chairs, under no circumstances must you touch anything on the North Korean side of the table, and, no, definitely no Bears

4 votes

3.5