A visit to the world's most heavily-fortified border is a haunting experience that stays with the visitor long after leaving. Photography is prohibited in most of the border area, so many of the pictures below were taken quickly & clandestinely without any time to prepare for luxuries like picture composition. Some were so rushed, in fact, that they were taken with the camera still strapped to my shoulder or dangling from my neck; often I just pointed the camera in a particular direction and snapped off a photo without being able to peer through the viewfinder, all the while trying to maintain the impression that I wasn't photographing anything I wasn't supposed to...

Tour groups are allowed inside the DMZ only with heavy military escort.
Here, a South Korean soldier motions our caravan to stop at a military checkpoint.

---------------------------------------

The Bridge of No Return, site of a massive prisoner exchange after the Korean War. South Korea is in the foreground. The actual DMZ border sign stands in front of the white poles on the near side of the bridge; this entire bridge and the buildings visible beyond are in North Korean territory.

---------------------------------------

Pulling up alongside the bridge, as close to North Korea as one can get while riding in a tour bus. North Korean territory officially starts just behind the white poles. At the end of the Korean War, prisoners from both sides were brought here and given the opportunity to choose which Korea to cross to. Once the decision was made there was no turning back, giving rise to the name Bridge of No Return.

---------------------------------------

North Korean guard posts dot the hillsides in seemingly every direction.

---------------------------------------

North Korean propaganda signs line the hills facing South Korea. Most messages testify to North Korea's superior way of life and inevitable victory in the ideological war. As if that weren't enough, loud martial music blares from gigantic speakers nearby.

---------------------------------------

Freedom House, South Korea, just a few feet away from the formal North Korea/South Korea border. Climbing the stairs provides an excellent view of the border area.

---------------------------------------

View from the pavilion staircase. I love the imagery in this shot, the tough "at the ready" martial arts stance of the South Korean guard mirroring that of the statue with its raised fist. Both face the North Korean border & soldiers just a few feet away.

---------------------------------------

The view from the top of the Freedom House pavilion. The large concrete building is in North Korea. The buildings painted in United Nations blue straddle the border between the two countries. The exact border is the raised concrete strip that runs between the blue buildings at the midpoint, visible in this picture. The half of the buildings in the foreground is South Korea; the back half is inside North Korea. The border cuts the buildings into two equal parts, and it is here where Korean delegations from both sides of the border conduct negotiations.

---------------------------------------

Two North Korean soldiers scatter as we arrive.

---------------------------------------

Going inside the building to symbolically cross the inter-Korea border.

---------------------------------------

Inside, a study in contrasts. South Korean soldiers accompanied us into the structure itself while North Korean military personnel watched us through the windows from outside.

---------------------------------------

On the left, the only picture I have of myself in Democratic People's Republic of Korea. I am standing next to the half of the table that lies within North Korean territory (yes, even the table is divided between the two countries. The microphone cord is the official border!). The North Korean soldier seems rather taken with my fancy camera equipment. On the right the same soldier, literally two feet away. Only the thin glass of the windows separated us, yet our two worlds could not have been farther apart.