After leg 49, I had hoped to get back to finish a couple of
weeks later. Christmas, among other
things got in the way, however, and it wasn’t until early January that I got
back to finish my trail. It still left
me with about a week and a half before the one year anniversary of starting, so
I considered it a win.
I got out of work early on the Friday and headed out
midafternoon to Seoul and then to Sokcho.
It was really nice to get somewhere early enough in the evening to
actually be able to walk around for a bit and then get a good night’s
sleep. I thought about heading up to the
border area, about 40 kilometres away that night, but figured I was close
enough, especially when I found there was a city bus that would go all the
way. I wouldn’t to do any transfers and
all the rest. Just catch a bus. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to go in
and get out of the unification observatory area, so I thought it best to go
early. When I looked at the schedule
that Google Maps had for the bus, there were a couple of early buses, between 6
and 8 in the morning, but then nothing until 11. That meant an early morning. But it would give me plenty of time to do the
final leg and get back to Seoul.
I did get up early and got some breakfast, then got on the
bus for the roughly hour and a half to the end point or the route. The bus driver did a double take when I told
him my destination. What? Do people not often take the bus for an hour
and a half? Ha ha!!
I got to the unification observatory registration area
around 9 and went in to get it all figured out.
The registration area had a spot for people who were in tours and those
who had a car. They directed me to the
car line. It wasn’t a big deal because I
was the only person there at that point.
She told me about the fee for the car and driver. She was a bit taken aback when I said I had
no car, and told me that I couldn’t go without a car. When I told her that I had been told I could
get a taxi in, she said it would cost 50 000 won. I knew that.
So she called and told me to wait.
When the taxi driver arrived, he was a really nice-seeming
guy, probably mid-60’s. He got a paper
for me to fill out. They needed my name
and age, presumably for identification purposes should something go wrong with North
Korea while I was in there and all hell were to break loose. It wasn’t something I expected, but those
were the rules. And then we were off.
The driver got us through the check point at the security
perimeter and we headed off on a really nice clean road… that is practically
unused. I have a couple of photos of the
area, for the driver slowed down and had me take a couple of photos of the
check point and such. However, I suspect
that because he was a bit surreptitious about it, and it being a secure area, it
would be a bad idea to post those photos in any way. We passed by the DMZ museum, and I hoped to
go in later. Then we came to the train
station. There are only a few
transportation routes into and out of North Korea from the south. There are a couple of roads and, I found out
on that trip, a second train line into North Korea. The other is north of Seoul. Both these crossing points have a shiny,
functioning train station. And both
train stations are ready to go… when the north and south are reunited as one
country. Unfortunately this is not
looking likely any time soon. So for
now, they sit forlornly at the border, empty, lonely buildings without anyone
in them. At least the train station
north or Seoul has visitors who go there on tours of the DMZ. The train station at the eastern border
crossing is behind fences and with guards around it. I have a photo of it, that my driver stopped
and had me take, but as we were leaving there was a bit of sudden and frantic
seeming activity in the guard house, so I suspect that that is also a verboten
photo. Instead, this is a photo of the
Dorasan train station near Seoul. It’s
very similar to what I saw at the unification observatory.
My driver then took me up to the observatory. It’s just a small spot on a hill, looking
north to the border and beyond. There is
a fair-sized parking lot, but my driver slipped over the edge of it. Then he waited until nobody was looking and
slipped past the moving guard rail things and into a spot that said not to
driver there. He conspiratorially put
his finger to his lips and swore me to secrecy… not that it was beyond the
notice of anyone who was looking. It
would be hard to miss a taxi parked in a place it shouldn’t be. But clearly, I had gotten a good taxi driver
to take me around.
We parked in the other lot and he got out and dug around in
his trunk and presented me with binoculars.
He took me up to a viewing platform and pointed out all the mountains
and hills north of the site. He pointed
out especially, the little kind-of-island here.
That was apparently the border.
The DMZ is supposed to be 4 kilometres wide with the actual
border at the midway point all the way across Korea. That didn’t look 2 kilometres away to
me. But the guard houses that were
clearly visible on two hills on either side of the valley leading to the
half-island were obviously from the opposing sides.
Now, I want to put in a note about my taxi driver. I don’t know exactly where to put this. I think it might deserve more prominence, but
I don’t know how to make it so. As I
said, he pointed out all of the local hills.
He knew all of their names. And
he knew them as though they were known to him.
That is not surprising. This area
was his home as a boy. His home town, if
I understood him correctly, was just north of the current border. And his family was split in half when the
final split between North and South Korea was completed after the Korean
War. He and his parents were in the
south. His grandparents and other parts
of his family were left in the north.
When he told me that, I just quietly said that I thought that was
sad. He got quiet for a moment, and
there was a look on his face, just for a flash, of loss. And then his jovial spirit returned as he
obviously took great pride in being from that area and being able to tell someone
about the landmarks. I didn’t learn his
name, and I couldn’t probably pick him out of a lineup now. But that probably doesn’t matter too much because
he could be any number of older Koreans, who were separated from other family
members when war they didn’t start, didn’t ask for, and probably didn’t want,
sent parts of their families to different sides of a contested border, all on
the capricious actions of governments supporting rival ideologies. I can’t imagine that. And for that realization, that observatory
area was a bit sad to me.
After he pointed out all the landmarks to me, the driver
told me I had 30 minutes to wander around the observatory. I went up and found a stamp spot for the
bicycle trail. I had the stamp from the security
park outside, so I didn’t need it. But I
decided that I would call it the final sign for the east coast trail. It represented the official end of my hike.
There was also a mail box.
I couldn’t resist sending a postcard from this place. It may be a highly touristy thing to do, but
it was necessary.
There were also pay binoculars from the viewing area at the
observatory. Again, I clearly had a
superior taxi driver/guide, a fact I realized again as I raised the binoculars
he had provided to me and looked up at the North Korean side of the border.
And I was able to see a mountain from the observatory. It was Geumgangsan, the Diamond
Mountain. About ten years ago, there was
a resort operating around that mountain.
It was a joint operation between the North and South Korean governments
to provide access to tourists from the south to see and do some hiking around
that mountain, as well as providing some income to the North Korean
government. It was a project that was
begun during a time of rapprochement between the two governments in the late 90’s
and early 2000’s. I had the opportunity
to visit the resort on a trip organized by a tour company in South Korea. Of course, shortly after that trip, a South
Korean woman was shot and killed by North Korean guards, allegedly for being in
an unauthorized area. The resulting
fallout of the incident led to the closure of the resort. It’s too bad.
It was a nice place. But seeing
it again from the observatory gave me a feeling of coming full circle.
I came down from the observatory and looked around a little
bit more. It was an old building, and
there was a bunch of renovation going on around it. But it also seems to be a bit of a lonely
building sitting just south of the border with the north, and without many
people knowing it is there, at least not many non-Koreans knowing it is
there. But that whole area in the very
northeast corner of South Korea is full of interesting historic and other sites
that really ought to be better publicized.
I went back to the taxi and the driver took me out to the
main parking lot, and got a stare from one of the military guys wandering
around. I hope he didn’t get in any
trouble. He showed me to another
building, where one could get a sense of the war. There was a tunnel with photos from the war
and an attempt at atmosphere with camouflage netting and then a little theatre
with a tent and sounds of bombs. There
was another room with living quarters, presumably that match the living
quarters of soldiers who patrol the border today.
And there was a room that discussed how remains are dealt
with when they are found. Even though I
couldn’t understand any of it because it was all described in Korean, the
photos were enough to get the point of it all across to me. It was sobering.
Back in the taxi, the driver started out of the area. I asked about the museum, but he told me it
would be a greater charge for his time… and it was a place for students and children. I don’t know if that was just to soften the
blow of it being more money and to make it easier to say it wasn’t necessary to
go, or just because he didn’t want to go and was trying to discourage me, but
in all likelihood the museum wouldn’t have been that useful to me anyway, as it
would have been in Korean with little if any English information. I agreed with him that it wasn’t necessary to
go and he took me out of the area and back to the registration centre.
He asked me where I was going. When I said that I was going to take the bus
back to town, he drove me to the bus stop.
I had thought I might try to complete the part of the hike in the last
leg that would be permitted, as I had stopped short on my last visit, but I
didn’t want to retrace my steps back to that spot after being driven to the bus
stop. So I got on the bus and headed
back to Seoul.
I don’t know if all the taxi drivers are as nice as mine
was. I don’t know if they all have the
same connection to the area. But I got a
very interesting experience, as short as it was, and I don’t feel too badly
about the money it cost to go in and finish my hike.
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