The DMZ: Where South Korea and North Korea Meet

A day out to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between South Korea and North Korea was one of the most interesting day trips I've ever taken. Like most tourists, I joined a bus tour from Seoul with the strict instructions: no jeans, no T-shirts. The North Koreans who can look from the other side of the border aren't allowed to see the "decadent West". This beginning already had me intrigued about the day ahead.

Our destination was Panmunjeom, the Joint Security Area, where North Korea and South Korea actually meet - the rest of the DMZ is a four kilometre wide buffer zone between the two countries. When we arrived, there were more strict instructions about how we should behave, and where we could and couldn't take photographs.

First stop was a lookout atop a set of stairs where we could look into the North Korean side of the border. From here, we could see North Koreans doing the same on their side - the people who weren't allowed to see us in jeans. We were also told we weren't allowed to point at anything, so we carefully held our arms at our sides - there were plenty of men with guns in the area.

Displays and information are housed inside the South Korean buildings next to the lookout, and it was once we left this building that the rules got very strict - no pictures, no staring at the North Korean guards, and so on. Around the conference buildings that sit right on the border, guards from both sides stand and it feels like a tense situation. Inside the conference room, where North Koreans have met the United Nations, we could walk onto actual North Korean territory - a strange feeling, somehow.

On the drive out, we could see the model village, Gijeong-dong, that North Korea has built for propaganda purposes. Guides told us that they sometimes broadcast communist propaganda across the border, with the South Korean village Daeseong-dong playing pop music in response - but this has now stopped after a 2004 agreement.

Recently, a South Korean student of mine told me about her trip to North Korea as a student journalist. She told me she met some North Korean university students, who told her they were happy with their life and respected their leader; she saw no evidence of communism, but she knew it was not the real North Korea. A tricky problem: but also an interesting place for a tourist visit, or at least a day trip to the border.