Well not quite.
We did manage to get within 170 metres to the ‘rouge nation’ by one of the infiltration tunnels. The tour to the demilitarised zone or DMZ was one of the first tourist attractions on our South Korean trip. No cameras were allowed in the tunnel itself as you are in a military controlled zone technically speaking but it’s not as serious as it sounds. Most of the guards just sign off the hordes of tourist buses that come sprawling in.
North Korea was also visible from Dora Observatory where you can see a North Korean town across the boarder flying their flag up very high. Our tour guide shared interesting stories of the two nations having competitions to build the tallest flagpole to fly their respective flags higher and higher.
I enjoyed the story of South Korea blasting loud K-Pop on speakers aimed to the direction of North Korea to counter their propaganda that South Korea is poor and uncivilised. Apparently this childish behaviour has stopped as the respective governments are taking lots of steps to reunify. Experts think that it would take North Korea 20-30 years to economically re-integrate if unification were to happen. We visited a train station near the border that’s virtually ready to connect the two nations by rail. It’s a long road ahead.
PHILNOM IS AWAY 