Traffic-slowing devices are everywhere. They are staggered all the way across the Unification Bridge, and our bus must slowly slalom its way across.
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:
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.
No photography is permitted in the tunnel. Lockers for cameras:
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.
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