Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

• Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

Panmundzhom located in the center of the Korean demilitarized zone. This is the only tourist destination (if it can be called), where visitors are required to sign a pass, implying responsibility for "injury or death as a direct result of enemy action."

Panmundzhom - a small village, about 55 kilometers north of Seoul, which is on the de facto border between North and South Korea. The truce that ended hostilities between the two countries was signed here in 1953, but since the details of the truce never consistent, the two sides are still officially at war, and millions of people stand guard around the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

This 4-kilometer-long strip of land that separates the two Koreas is the most armed region in the world, mines, barbed wire and trenches stretched across the border and reach halfway to Seoul in the South and North Korea in the North.

Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

In one kilometer to the east is almost round piece of land together guarded the South and the North, where the two parties occasionally meet for discussions and exchanges of fire. Most of the time the soldiers just look at each other across the border. They were not allowed to cross the border, after the so-called ax murder incident in 1976, when two American soldiers were killed with an ax by North Korean soldiers, because the Americans have tried to cut down the tree the DMZ.

Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

This is a very dangerous place, but at the same time and a huge tourist attraction. Every year thousands of tourists visit the village to see the last frontier of the Cold War. Panmunjom is like a fancy theme park catastrophic mass death.

Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

62-kilometer trip to Panmunjom - is an adventure in itself. Freedom Road with 12 lanes becomes eerily empty as you get closer to the border, because its main purpose is to conduct the most rapid evacuation if war breaks out suddenly. To repel the invasion, both sides of the road covered with barbed wire and dotted with observation towers. In the hills located machinegun bunkers, while separating strip stacked sandbags to protect. Along the highway have huge concrete blocks that can be blown up to block the road.

Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

One of the main attractions in Panmunjom - visit greenish-blue single-storey building, where officials are sometimes found on the two sides. negotiating table, covered with green velvet and placed directly on the border, and a microphone cable that runs through the middle of the table, officially recognized as an international border. When tourists are accompanied by the building, four soldiers from the United Nations are at both ends of the building, guarding the tourists, while the North Korean soldiers watching them through the window. Tourists are asked not to install them eye contact, and do not make any kind of gesture that could provoke the North Korean guards. It is also necessary to follow the dress code, blue jeans, shorts or any other provocative clothing is not allowed.

Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea Panmundzhom - strange border between North and South Korea

"I'm not sure I would recommend the DMZ as a place to rest," wrote Kevin Sullivan Washington Post, "But for anyone who plans to be in South Korea for business or on vacation, this place is not to be missed - it is - one of the the strangest and most exciting places that you can visit in a tourist bus "