The Third Infiltration Tunnel

I notice strange towers as we drive north. The one on the right appears to be for cellphone transmissions -- the one on the left, what? My guess is some kind of early-detection sensor.

Traffic-slowing devices are everywhere. They are staggered all the way across the Unification Bridge, and our bus must slowly slalom its way across.

One checkpoint after another. We are asked to show our passports multiple times.

I spot a camouflaged battery of howitzers aimed at the North but am unable to point my camera in time.

Farmers are subsidized to work their fields in Panmunjom (pop. 242), a village on the border. They pay no taxes on their earnings and bring in an average annual income of $80,000-$100,000.

Women may marry into the village but men may not, and there's another catch: You don't get the subsidy unless your family lived in the Panmun Valley before June 25, 1950, when the North opened fire on the South and the three-year war began. 

The heavily undermanned South got rolled by the People's Army, with backing from the Soviets. Seoul fell in three days. A Soviet T-34 rumbles through the capital:

The city was recaptured briefly by U.N. forces, and then the North, with the help of China's "human wave" tactics, retook Seoul on Jan. 1, 1951.

Our first stop in the DMZ theater was the Third Infiltration Tunnel, discovered on Oct. 17, 1978, with help from a North Korean defector. It is considered the most threatening of the four known tunnels blasted by the North, extending a quarter-mile under southern soil. Signs at the site claim 30,000 armed men per hour might have been able to go through it.

Twenty more tunnels are thought to exist. American and South Korean soldiers continue to drill in the DMZ to find them.

North Korea never denied its existence but simply said it was an old coal mine. The South claims the North "painted" the tunnel's walls with coal dust as a cover story. In fact, there is little coal to be mined on the peninsula, its substrata being almost entirely granite. "This once again shows the double-sidedness of the North," says a propaganda sign near the gift shop.

No photography is permitted in the tunnel. Lockers for cameras:

Yellow hard hats are a must. I'm glad I wore mine because I clocked my head pretty good at one point. There is a steep downhill trek of about a quarter-mile before you get to the tunnel.

Once in the "Tunnel of Aggression," as the South calls it, you have to crouch the rest of the way. The ceilings are buttressed by 5-inch steel pipe, and water sloshes through the black rubberized walkway. I rubbed my finger against the wall and it turned black with coal paint. After 450 yards, the tunnel is blocked by concrete barriers. The DPRK lies just ahead in the darkness.

Outside, I pose for a picture. I need to pee, but there is a line at the bathroom, so I scout for a suitable spot in the woods.

Um, I guess it can wait.