DMZ visit

All that was needed to convince me I'd travelled back in time and was at a stope entrance at Grootvlei gold mine back in South Africa was the sound of the drills and the rattle of the cocopans as they trundled ore out, but then reality struck home - I was standing at the point where South Koreans had intercepted a North Korean tunnel dug under the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ.

North Korean soldiers or slave labour had dug, chiselled and blasted this tunnel and three others under the 4 km wide stretch of border with the intention of either infiltrating or attacking the South. That is, the South Koreans have discovered four tunnels - there may be some they have not found.

We headed down the tunnel from this point to the place where the last (or first, depending on your point of view) of three barriers blocked the tunnel. A steel door, barbed wire and a small window through which you could see the next barricade. The thought of the recent saber-rattling that had been done by NK suddenly did not seem so far away or unlikely to erupt into real warfare.

This peaceful fountain, with its oak tree and bushes, stands outside the barracks and post where Korean soldiers keep watch over the valley. On a clear day you can see all the way to the NK watchpost on the other side. The Korean on the stone of this fountain, 망항수, means watchport.

The juxtaposition of this buddhist bell tower and the camouflage brings home just how commonplace it has become - over fifty years of watching each other across the border, at times the leaders talk and then they don't, but we watch and live our lives here.

Here I am under the ROK sign on the wall of the barracks.

The visit was surreal on many levels, not least of which was the thought that tourists come here every day, looking out across the border at what is, after all, merely a prolonged cease-fire. I think this is what I sensed that day - the Korean war is by no means over. I pray that it soon will be, and that the unification so many Koreans dreams of will become a reality.