Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SIGHTS
The following describes the major stops on the tour offered by the USO. Dora Observatory
and the Third Tunnel are both in Imjingak and can be visited independently of going on a
JSA (PANMUNJEOM)
Tours kick off with a rapid-fire briefing by the soldier guides at Camp Bonifas. Though
your tour will likely be a quiet one, the soldier will remind you that this frontier is no
stranger to violent incidents, one of the most notorious being in 1976 when two US soldiers
were hacked to death with axes by North Korean soldiers after the former had tried to chop
down a tree obstructing the view from a watch tower. Camp Bonifas, the joint US-ROK
army camp just outside the DMZ, is named after one of the slain soldiers.
MILITARY AREA
Next you will board specially designated buses to travel into the JSA towards the collec-
tion of blue-painted UN buildings that constitute Panmunjeom. Official meetings are still
sometimes held here, and in the main conference room mikes on the tables constantly re-
cord everything said. Straddling the ceasefire line, this is the only place where you can
safely walk into North Korea. South Korean soldiers stand guard inside and out in a modi-
fied taekwondo stance - an essential photo op - and their North Korean counterparts keep a
steady watch, usually, but not always, from a distance.
Back on the bus you'll be taken to one of Panmunjeom's lookout posts from where you
can see the two villages within the DMZ: Daeseong-dong in the South and Gijeong-dong in
the North; Gijeong-dong is also known by the South as Propaganda Village because virtu-
ally all the buildings are empty or just facades.
DORA OBSERVATORY
(use of binoculars ₩500; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun)
Peer through binoculars from here for a closer look
at Kaesong city and Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea, where cheap North
Korean labourers are employed by South Korean conglomerates. At the foot of the moun-
tain, Dorasan train station, currently the northern terminus of South Korea's rail line, is a
symbol of the hope for the eventual reunification of the two Koreas.
OBSERVATORY
THIRD INFILTRATION TUNNEL
( 9am-5pm Tue-Sun)
Since 1974 four tunnels have been found running under the DMZ, dug
by the North Koreans so that their army could launch a surprise attack. Walking along
265m of this 73m-deep tunnel is not for the claustrophobic or the tall: creeping hunched
over to reach the coiled barbed wire at the triple-concrete wall-blocked end of the tunnel,
TUNNEL
