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What's up guys? You're watching Vagabrothers.
Right now we're on the border of
North and South Korea. Welcome to the DMZ.
Good morning guys. It's 7am in Seoul,
South Korea, and today we are heading to the
edge of North Korea. We're going to the
Demilitarized Zone, the DMZ, which is the
border between North and South Korea, but
our bus leaves right now, so let's go.
Alright guys. We are at Camp Boniface,
which is the JSA, the Joint Security Area
right here on the front lines of the DMZ
Basically, DMZ stands for
Demilitarized Zone. It is a four
kilometre wide, 251 kilometer long border
between North and South Korea.
Long story short is that after the
Second World War, the Russians were in
the north and the Americans were in the
south....similar is kind of like East and
West Germany, but instead of creating
simply two states, there was a three-year
long war that broke out between the two
nations. Ironically enough, the DMZ
means Demilitarized Zone, but this is one
of the most heavily fortified areas in the
world. There's over a million standing
troops on both sides if you add them
both up, and right now we are in a United
Nations camp. We're going to be hopping
onto a bus and heading to the front line
between North and South Korea.
Let's go.
We just traveled two kilometers
through the DMZ to a neutral spot in the
middle where the two nations are able to
come and discuss matters on a daily basis.
We weren't allowed to film between the
two areas because it still is an active
military zone. They signed an armistice
in 1953. The two countries are
technically still at war. It's kind of a relic
of the Cold War. There's two million
anti-personnel mines between the countries,
making this one of the most dangerous,
heavily mined areas in the world.
Just switch buses and arrived into the forward
operating area, and we need to get off
the bus right now, so let's go. Thank you.
On the table you can see the three
microphones. This marks the official
military demarcation line in this building.
So those of you to my left are standing
in North Korea right now, and those of
you to my right are still safe with me
in South Korea.
This is where the armistice was officially
signed These microphones actually
represent the division between North and
South Korea. I'm in South Korea right now;
take a step across, and we are now in
North Korea. These dudes are here
permanently, the South Korean soldiers,
and on the other side is a building
complex, which is manned by the North
Koreans. Bizarre version of Buckingham
Palace. Everyone's taking pictures
of the guards. They seem to be chill; not
talking at all because they're not show;
they're totally on point and very, very intense.
Last ones out of here. That's it. Finished.
That was really bizarre.
It's really hard for us to film right now.
Excuse us if we're just doing it in little
bursts. Fast more than anything. We were
taken off of the bus, through the
building, given instructions we could not
photograph until we arrived, and then we
had about two minutes inside of the room
where the armistice was signed in 1953,
technically crossing into North Korea.
I think that it's one of those
weird and neutral places, a non-space.
This is not North Korea; it's not South Korea.
It's a neutral zone, and I think
that's what makes it so fascinating.
What's even crazier is that there's a
village here of locals who are trapped
pretty much in the DMZ Area.
We need to turnoff the camera now.
We've just gone to the jointly administered
area and come back the South Korean side
of the DMZ. It's just crazy. We crossed
through this whole area that's
essentially a no-man's zone. It doesn't
really belong to North Korea; it doesn't
really belong to South Korea.
It's completely covered in mines.
Two million anti-personnel mines
in the area, and there're anti-tank barriers
All that is because North Korea has
the fourth largest army in the world.
It's got 1.4 million active soldiers
for a population 25 million.
The Korean War
was about three years long.
Almost three million casualties,
and it's often referred to as the
as the Forgotten War. But what is insane
is that this military stalemate- this
military situation- has lasted for over
60 years, and it is relatively forgotten.
But it was really like the first Cold War
conflict. You had Russia and
communist China facing off against the
United States, and this was one of the
key arguments in what the U.S. called
the Domino Effect: the idea that if a
country like South Korea could fall to
communism, the whole area ...all of Asia
would topple one after the other like
a row of dominoes, which is
of course why the United States went
into Vietnam, Lao, Cambodia in the years
afterwards. Also just to put it into
perspective, the threat of nuclear war
has always been at the heart of the
Korea issue. Harry Truman contemplated
using nuclear weapons. General MacArthur
who was in charge of the United Nations
forces here was pushing for nukes to be
used. Truman said no because he thought
it would completely escalate this
conflict and turn it into another world war.
You have to realize that the Korean War
happened only five years after the
end of the Second World War. The globe
was exhausted from fighting and the
Korean War very much was kind of a
secondary conflict, and yet this
situation, this military stalemate,
continues to this day and being here,
seeing it for ourselves, walking up to
the edge of the border, it's just been
kind of a surreal experience and really
puts all of the things that are happening
right now with North Korea into context.
What's it like working here?
Is it pretty weird?
Working here is not a normal station.
It's actually really weird.
We've stopped for lunch at this new-ish
building. It opened in 2004, I think,
and it was once an open- controlled, but
open border between North and South Korea.
They closed it when the North Koreans
stepped up provocation, and now there's just a
restaurant here. When we do the DMZ
tour, they take buses here to eat.
Kind of a strange building because it's
new, clean and empty, but it smells like
formaldehyde and soiled linen, and this
is where we will be eating.
The creepiest thing about this place is our bus is
gone, and I don't know if we've been left
here because this would be a bad place
to be stranded in the middle of a no -man's
land because then you can't walk back
across the civilian exclusion zone.
So you just have to live here
eating the formaldehyde food.
I feel like the Tom Hank's movie.
Today keeps getting weirder.
We are now at a
theme park in the middle of the civilian
exclusion zone, and we have 45 minutes
here. Apparently this is because our tour
guide needs to go buy tickets and
arrange some paperwork with the South
Korean Army who run the tunnel section
of the tour. The last section was run by
The United Nations.
There're some rides, some ice cream,
so we might just get an ice cream
and take a walk around and see if we
can go on one of these rollercoasters.
There's something extremely creepy about
abandoned theme parks and especially
ones that are jutted up against the
Demilitarized Zone and one of the
longest enduring conflicts in the world.
This place is closed and empty, and
we're going to sit here and drink a beer
because why not?
We're not in North Korea.
We're really close but
there's just a very strange feeling here.
It feels like North Korea here.
Everything's dead
There's nobody here. It's quiet.
In general, it's very bizarre.
I think it's time we get out of this
amusement park. Our bus is leaving,
and we need to head to the tunnel.
Now we're standing in front of this massive railway
station that was supposed to be an
international railway station linking
the two Koreas. You might wonder
after all this talk of doom and gloom if
there's any shred of hope. Well, in the
late 1990s-- 1998 to 2007, more or less,
there's this period known as the
Sunshine Period
where peace looked possible.
The South Koreans were giving a lot of money
to the North Koreans for development,
and they invested in projects like this in
the hope that it could start some positive
cooperation. It might seem kind of silly
to build railway stations for peace, but
actually, one of the major theories of
peace building is that cooperation on
simple things, such as trade, such as
managing shared waterways...
these are the sorts of things that
require a minimum of politeness
and can start building on larger areas
of cooperation. This was built in 2002 or
2003. A few years later, tensions rose
again, and it was abandoned.
A strange symphony of sounds
happening right now.
There's a siren going off
somewhere over there. There's classical
music coming from North Korea, and then
there's just geese because there's all
these geese migrating through the DMZ.
Now this gets me excited. That is
probably a crazy train trip. I have done
the Trans Mongolian Railroad from Beijing
to Moscow via Ulaanbaatar. Imagine going
from Lisbon all the way down as far as
Singapore. It's called the Turn. The Trans
Eurasian Railway Network, and that would
be the longest rail journey in the world.
If peace does happen and this
railway gets opened up, you could
potentially ride from the Pacific Ocean all
the way to the Atlantic overland.
Now we've just driven up this
big hill, this place called Dorasan. This is
a system of fortifications and a
watchtower on a mountain right above the
DMZ, and this is where we're going to get
our first clear view into North Korea.
You can hear the music, which is coming
from a propaganda village that the North
Koreans have built on the other side of
the DMZ.
I've got my won, going to
put it in and describe what I see.
That is the industrial village over there.
Apparently, most of this is abandoned.
There's only a few people who go in there
to maintain the buildings.
Two observations:
First of all, for a country that doesn't
trade much with the rest of the world,
great sound system. They must have built
it, reversed engineered it or something.
Secondly, if you're trying to convince
people to defect to your country, you
can choose better music. I mean, kpop?
Kpop is pretty good. This is not kpop.
This is like K Propaganda.
KPROP.
We're finally on our way down
into the tunnel,
which was dug by the North Koreans.
There've been four of these
tunnels that were discovered in the 70s,
part of a North Korean plan to have a
overwhelming invasion of South Korea.
All the tunnels in the direction of Seoul,
coming from four different directions.
We can't film inside.
It's a military facility, so we
have to put our cameras in the locker.
Bummer.
We've just emerged from the tunnel.
We were not allowed to film down there,
but pretty mind-boggling to think that
there were four of those discovered as
late as 1990 and that the top priority
for North Korea is unification through
force. But this whole situation today has
just been absolutely bizarre, very unique.
The fact that we're listening to North
Korean propaganda coming across the DMZ
through the forest, and that's just
normal and perpetual here. I don't know
what do you think ?
I think that you said it.
One thing that both nations
have in common is that they want to see
the peninsula unified. That makes sense
because the Korean culture is so unique.
We had the chance to see a glimpse of
it this week, certainly not all of it, but I
do have hope. I do hope that the two
Koreas can come together eventually, that
there can be peace here, and that the
millions of people who died in this
conflict, did not die in vain.
I don't think you're the only person who
wants a unified future and more growth.
Going to the train station that is
a symbol that, you know, people are
thinking of the future. I don't know.
Let us know your thoughts. Put them down
in the comments section. Hopefully you
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In the meantime, stay curious, keep
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on the road.
Peace, seriously. Peace and love. Bye.