[Holiday in North Korea] Touring both sides of Korea's DMZ

Tourists from the North side enter one of the conference rooms straddling the Demarcation Line in the Joint Security Area in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

By Jon Dunbar

"What's it like visiting the DMZ from the other side?" she asked me.

I felt a little uncomfortable talking to my Korean DMZ guide about my travels in the other Korea, a place she can probably never hope to visit. But it was a fair question, so I answered honestly, having visited the DMZ from both sides.

It is stressful. On your way in, they brief you on all sorts of safety procedures, and prep you literally for the outbreak of war if you are so unlucky to be there when it happens. There is a strict dress code, and your behavior is heavily controlled at all times. They basically march you right up to the line separating you from the enemy, and then they quietly withdraw you. It is not to be taken lightly.

I couldn't gauge my North Korean guide's reaction, but it certainly differed from her own experience, bringing foreign groups down from Pyongyang to peer south across the truce village at the buildings on the South Korean side.

A North Korean map of Panmunjom in September 2018 / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

From the North Korean side, where we were when my guide asked me this question, it is much different: no fears of sudden invasion, no dress code. And it's overrun with pushy Chinese tourists. We also get to visit many more interesting sites than even the most generous tours from the South.

I've told her what it's like to do the South's tour, so now I'll share with you what the North's version is like. Of course, neither side is running DMZ tours right now, but we can hope they resume in the future.

The DMZ is about a three-hour drive down from Pyongyang on an awful rickety road, the 170-kilometer Reunification Highway. Buses head out from the tourist hotels in Pyongyang in the morning, and it basically becomes a mad dash south to beat the rush. Even the most modern tour bus can't go faster than 60 kilometers an hour, or they'd probably shake apart. Don't think about napping during the ride, because the bumps will keep even the sleepiest traveler awake.

Various items are sold at the rest stop on the Reunification Highway in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

About halfway down, everyone stops at a rest stop for snacks, souvenirs and a bathroom break. The building itself is identifiable as a rest stop for its design, which is a sort of North Korean concrete take on streamline moderne, spanning the highway with its wide, slightly curved horizontal platform, presenting a vaguely ship-like shape. Sharp lines are painted on its contours, and the thing was pink during my 2018 visit, but on my previous 2010 visit it was pastel green.

The rest stop on the Reunification Highway connecting Pyongyang and Kaesong in September 2018. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

After this rest stop, the trip becomes more dramatic as the bus trundles south, passing by a series of checkpoints over the next hour. The hills down by Kaesong are barren, never properly reforested and now blighted by erosion.

Signs of erosion are visible on hills near Kaesong in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

The city of Kaesong passes on the left, although I haven't managed to spot the Kaesong Industrial Complex which I think would be on the other side of the road after the city proper. Later, the propaganda village of Kijong-dong, with its massive flagpole, can be seen on the right. Various fortifications such as collapsible tank traps line the road.

Buses pass between massive tank traps to approach the Joint Security Area in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

All buses come to a stop at an enclosed space, where tour groups will proceed based on the order in which they arrived (necessitating the rush from Pyongyang in the first place). During the wait, which could take a while, there's a gift shop worth visiting. It's a good place to buy Kaesong products, especially ginseng-based products including traditional alcohol.

Plastic furniture is adorned with Hite, a South Korean beer brand, in the North Korean side of Panmunjom in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

On my 2018 visit, I bought a bottle of snake liquor here, complete with the pickled corpse of a venomous snake inside.

The gift shop at the North Korean side of Panmunjom in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

Once it's time to proceed, the buses take groups further in, past an even more imposing barrier of tank traps.

The first stop within the area is at the Armistice Talks Hall, where the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953. Both times I've been here, the room was flooded with Chinese tourists lounging around in all the chairs and chatting loudly, paying little or no attention to the Korean guides trying to explain the significance of the place. On my first visit in 2010, our own English-language guide tried to shush the Chinese tourists, and footage of that even made it into a souvenir DVD we received at the end.

Armistice Talks Hall on the North Korean side of Panmunjom in September 2018. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

Next door is the Signing Pavilion, which houses many artifacts. On my first visit in 2010, I noticed an axe under a big glass case; on my return visit in 2018, I headed straight for that case, confirming it was there with an additional wooden club. These were the weapons used in the infamous "Axe Murder Incident" of Aug. 18, 1976, in which the Western narrative says North Koreans attacked and murdered two Americans with their own tools. But the North presents a completely different narrative about this incident, and a label in Korean handwriting identifies them as "the axe and the club that American imperialists used to kill our guards at Panmunjom." But no more details of this incident or these casualties are provided, and guides tend to give that corner of the room a wide berth.

The weapons used in the 1976 "Axe Murder Incident" on display in a building on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area, in September 2018. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

After returning to the bus, the next stop is not far down the road. Tour buses unload just a little downhill from Tongilgak, the site where South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had their second summit on May 26, 2018. Nearby is a big stone with Kim Il-sung's signature carved in, along with the date July 7, 1994 ― the last document the nation's founder ever signed before passing away the next day. The document was apparently about an inter-Korean summit he was to have with South Korean President Kim Young-sam 18 days later.

A guide stands in front of a large stone slab bearing a copy of North Korea founder Kim Il-sung's signature in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

After standing and staring at this site for a few moments, tourists are marched around the corner, where we suddenly find ourselves face to face with South Korea.

The Joint Security Area viewed from the North Korean side in September 2018. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

The path leads up to the front terrace of Panmungak, the three-story building on the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area (JSA). Below are the blue shacks straddling the Demarcation Line, and on the other side is Freedom House, a modern-looking building whose North-facing surface is covered with various surveillance cameras. It is strange and jarring encountering South Korea this far into North Korean territory, an unpleasant reminder of the ugly political reality the peninsula faces.

On some visits, tourists can go down to the blue meeting houses, and even step into South Korean territory within their shelter. On my 2018 visit, it wasn't offered, but in 2010 we had a brief chance to visit. The Chinese tourists got to go in first, and we had to come out last. I set up my tripod (something not allowed on the South's tours) on a table at the northern end of the room, but had to hurry as the North Korean guards shooed us out. "But that's where I keep all my stuff!" I whined as I packed up my gear.

Jon Dunbar poses in a conference shack at the Joint Security Area as North Korean soldiers usher everyone out in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

Months later, I returned to the JSA on the South's tour, and stood in the exact same spot as I had during the North tour, which was quite a strange sensation. Of course, the South tour leads us out back to safety quickly, while the North tour leads us further north, into Panmungak, the multi-tiered building at the north end of the JSA.

Inside Panmungak in the North Korean side of the Joint Security Area in September 2018. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

I've heard South Korean tours used to say this building was a complete facade, but my own visit showed it wasn't just some flimsy movie set. There's a balcony on the upper floor where we get a good view of the JSA. Up here, the Chinese tourists have quite a lot of fun glimpsing into this forbidden South Korea, a country they can very easily visit whenever they want.

Chinese tourists pose with a North Korean soldier at Panmunjom in August 2010. / Courtesy of Jon Dunbar

From there, the tour buses whisk visitors away, usually back to Kaesong for lunch and sightseeing around the city's many historic landmarks. And then it's another shaky three-hour ride back to Pyongyang.

I see why the South side treats the JSA as this unknowable security and technological frontier, threatening to envelop the peninsula in another catastrophic war. And I understand how the North uses it as little more than a theatrical stage, exemplifying North Korea's overstated willingness to reunify thwarted only by the impenetrable threat of the South and the U.S. That's certainly why the South's tour is so tense and the North's is so chill. Someday, maybe security will be relaxed more, and we'll be able to visit both sides on a tour, getting the chance to compare both conflicting narratives and get a total understanding.