DMZ, Korea DMZ Following orders from the US soldier to line up in a row, we stood obediently looking out into enemy lines. I cast my mind back to the waiver form I'd just signed: 'The visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom will entail entering a hostile area and the possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action'. All of a sudden I felt like a sitting duck, as several heavily armed and sinister looking North Korean military officers peered at us intently through their binoculars. It felt like we'd been transported into a B-grade spy film. Subscribe http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0nGJdPyjUFgOL37QQWGzHQ?sub_confirmation=1 Follow us TWITTER @newsdailyplanet 'The scariest place on Earth' Yet this was no movie set: this was what Bill Clinton described as the scariest place on Earth. Welcome to the DMZ (Korea's demilitarised zone), one of the world's most unlikely tourist destinations. Here you'll encounter the military demarcation line that divides South Korea from its long estranged bad-boy brother, North Korea. These two mortal enemies, still technically at war, eyeball each other across the border, as they've done since the Korean war ended in stalemate nearly 60 years ago. The drama along the border is only a few hours' bus ride from Seoul, and can only be visited as part of an organised tour. I was travelling with the Panmunjom Travel Center (www.panmunjomtour.com), who arranged a North Korean defector to answer our questions about life on the other side. Meeting a North Korean defector I'm not sure what I was expecting (perhaps someone in a short-sleeved zip-up Kim Jong Il suit), but it took me by surprise that the defector was a woman. Aged in her mid-30s, she had an air of elegance. There was also a look of incredible sadness about her, and a steely look in her eye as she spoke about the hardships of living in North Korea. Escaping Pyongyang not only involved a series of pay-offs to brokers, swimming for miles in rivers before escaping into China, but also, like so many other female defectors, being married off to a Chinese man she had never met. Eventually making it to South Korea years later came at the high price of being alone, away from her baby, family and loved ones - and not being able to contact them to say she's alive. Yet she was one of the lucky ones. Several interesting stopovers along the way made for a good prelude to reaching the DMZ. We plunged down into the depths of the Third Infiltration Tunnel (one of four secret tunnels dug into the south by the North Koreans, who claimed they were coal mines), visited a squeaky clean train station that awaits the day trains can continue on to Pyongyang, and a lookout point with sweeping views into North Korea. 'The scariest place on Earth' Yet this was no movie set: this was what Bill Clinton described as the scariest place on Earth. Welcome to the DMZ (Korea's demilitarised zone), one of the world's most unlikely tourist destinations. Here you'll encounter the military demarcation line that divides South Korea from its long estranged bad-boy brother, North Korea. These two mortal enemies, still technically at war, eyeball each other across the border, as they've done since the Korean war ended in stalemate nearly 60 years ago. The drama along the border is only a few hours' bus ride from Seoul, and can only be visited as part of an organised tour. I was travelling with the Panmunjom Travel Center (www.panmunjomtour.com), who arranged a North Korean defector to answer our questions about life on the other side. Meeting a North Korean defector I'm not sure what I was expecting (perhaps someone in a short-sleeved zip-up Kim Jong Il suit), but it took me by surprise that the defector was a woman. Aged in her mid-30s, she had an air of elegance. There was also a look of incredible sadness about her, and a steely look in her eye as she spoke about the hardships of living in North Korea. Escaping Pyongyang not only involved a series of pay-offs to brokers, swimming for miles in rivers before escaping into China, but also, like so many other female defectors, being married off to a Chinese man she had never met. Eventually making it to South Korea years later came at the high price of being alone, away from her baby, family and loved ones - and not being able to contact them to say she's alive. Yet she was one of the lucky ones. Several interesting stopovers along the way made for a good prelude to reaching the DMZ. We plunged down into the depths of the Third Infiltration Tunnel (one of four secret tunnels dug into the south by the North Koreans, who claimed they were coal mines), visited a squeaky clean train station that awaits the day trains can continue on to Pyongyang, and a lookout point with sweeping views into North Korea. lonelyplanet.com/asia/travel-tips-and-articles/77360#ixzz2jsZr5XNX

• published: 06 Nov 2013
• views: 10