Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 -Seoul - The 3rd Tunnel

We were brought to the what is commonly known as the 3rd Tunnel where tourists are allowed to walked down for a tour.

There are 4 tunnels in all that the South had discovered and suspect the North of digging them for the purpose of infiltrating the South but the North had denied.

No photos were allowed in the tunnel.

Entrance to tunnel

 We were given a briefing before making our way down and were issued a hard hat for protection. The tunnel is located 73m underground 435m into the South from North and have a arc of 2m diameter.

We were allowed to walked till 265m and afterwhich barricades were installed to prevent infiltration from North.

As this tunnel is nearest to Seoul (52km) away, this is considered as the most dangerous of all the tunnels found.

Mock up entrance

The walk down was very steep and we had to hold on to the railings to prevent rolling down hill. Since the passageway was built as a slope, the way down is around 100+m instead of the actual 73m.
While walking down, I kept thinking how on earth I am going to make my way up later since I felt tired even on the way down.

Needed alot of energy to keep braking in order to walk safely. Was already sweating like hell when walking down.

We reached the tunnel and started walking along the tunnel but even as an Asian Female I was too tall for the tunnel at some point. Keep knocking against the railings on top, luckily I had my hard hat on. The caucasians in our tour group had it harder than us since they are of bigger built.

We were allowed to peep through the heavy metal door at the 1st baricade before making our way back to the start of tunnel and then up the slope to ground level.

Walking inside the tunnel is totally not easy but it was said to be able to allow 30,000 soilders to pass through every hour here from North. Scary thoughts if you asked me. It makes Seoul very vulnerable I guessed.

True to my previous thoughts, the way up the slope was a killer. I had to rest on the bench many a times to catch my breath. We took off the outer jacket since was perspiring like mad. I was one of the 1st to enter but dropped off to the middle of the pack on our way up. Haha Got Mr Love to pull me at 1 point but he gave up since he is also too tired to walk let alone pull me along.

We completed the walk up!

 Rushed to buy bottle drinks the minute we hit ground level and welcome the gush of ice cold water.

I was so warmed by the walked that need not put on my jacket for quite a long time even when walking outdoors under the cold winter wind. This is how tedious the walk is.

But there were no regret going down since it is interesting to see how the actual tunnel is like and hey how often you get so close to danger?

Hoping for reunification

There is also a show room displaying items they found in the tunnels but it is not as big scale as the one in the camp we first went.

Suspension Insulator

Truth to be told I don't know what the items are used for as they only have names of the items but no explaination. Then again, maybe their name is self explanatory.

Electric insulator

There are also brief write ups on the different tunnels with information of when and where the tunnels are found. It's length and diameter are also stated. But I was a bit puzzled on how they knew how long the tunnel is since the starting point is in North.

2nd tunnel write up

3rd tunnel write up

4th tunnel write up

If my memory didn't fail me, the only tunnel that allows visitors is the 3rd tunnel. All others are closed to visitors.

There are quite alot of different packages of DMZ offered by the organisation I booked with. Some exclude visit to the tunnel which of course has cheaper package fee. But personally, I feel the 3rd tunnel is a must visit as compared to other sites.

It is the most interesting place on interest in the whole tour.

I'm glad we are able to make it for this trip since there is a chance the tour is cancel should there be any circumstances that deem the DMZ to be unsafe for touring.