Just behind London’s CCTV coverage I think this must be one of the most heavily monitored parts of the world. Alongside both edges of the DMZ there are watch towers every few hundred metres. At one particularly big observation tower I was lucky enough to be able to peer though some of the military grade binoculars there. It was such a clear day that in the distance I could even see a statue of Kim Jong-Il the former ruler of the North looking down on one of the towns.
As a consequence of all this monitoring on the border the north has made several attempts at advancing into South Korea underground. The idea being that supplies and personnel could be ferried forward as hostilities began or perhaps to actually start them!
These tunnels have been found by the South, although the North claims they were either coal mines (painting the walls black to make the story more convincing) or that they were built by the south.
When I am taken down one and along to the subterranean border I can see for myself what bunkum this is because all the marks from digging and preparing the explosives have clearly been created from the northern end. The mined space is not very high and certainly wasn’t built with me in mind, and when you reach the partition that has been installed by the South Koreans to stop anything from easily getting through you know that just the other side of it there will be a number of North Korean soldiers.
Each of which will be ill informed, heavily armed, most likely with AK47s, and probably wouldn’t be too pleased to be seeing this particular surfer.
The ‘Third Tunnel of Aggression’ that I visited is one of four that have been discovered with the most recent being in the nineties, but it is highly suspected that there are several more.
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