Borderline
Leaving Seoul, you enter the remnants of war. Grey skies lowered over the city, the first blossoming cherry trees, pinkly white, relieving the gloom on the banks of the Han River. The bus filled with women complaining of the cold. The city fell behind, replaced, after an interlude of light industry, big-box stores, and streams with skimmings of industrial froth, by more city — tightly packed sprouts of that other endemic South Korean growth, apartment blocks: dreary, dated, stained, with boxy air-conditioning units hanging from the exterior walls. Once you’ve left the city proper, rice fields, tubular greenhouses, and deep forest line the motorways. But, still, always, in some direction: a distantly towering cluster of residential development rises to frame and diminish the countryside.
We crossed a bridge, and I changed buses at Ganghwa Island’s main settlement — a smaller local bus, older women — and continued west. The wall of a little church on the hillside declared “God is Love” near the next bridge; the bus driver braked and swerved around yellow-and-black metal barriers placed to slow the approaching traffic, then stopped for the military checkpoint. A young soldier, automatic weapon hanging loosely from his back, saluted crisply and climbed aboard to check the passengers’ identification, glancing over the array of proffered Korean ID cards and my passport. He seemed satisfied and hopped off to once more salute the driver, who returned the gesture.
Gyodong Island, when it came into view, was surrounded by high fences topped with coiled barbed wire: North Korea — my first glimpse, from the bridge, was of a green smudge through the haze — sits on the other side of a narrow stretch of sea. I found a room in the dusty main town’s only yeogwan, a traditional inn where you sleep on a heated floor under a pile of blankets, then set out on foot.
I walked north to get as close to the border as possible before traversing the country, east to west. The strengthening sun pulled steam from furrowed rice fields as I strolled through a one-shop town, where workshops opened to the street and women with backs permanently bent tended with tiny sickles to roadside slivers of land. A chorus of dog barks followed my progress, the town so small my presence felt noted and unwelcome.
Parallel rows of armed boys faced each other on the backs of military trucks, tossing curious glances my way as they trundled past. The presence of guns makes me uncomfortable, and the generally martial atmosphere filled me with unease; I felt as if I was committing some act of espionage as I walked — quite undisturbed — beneath the barbedwire-topped fences. A small military emplacement pumped southern propaganda into the air, a practice since discontinued by both sides. It bounced eerily off the hills so you heard it twice. All was still to the north, the country heaped against the sky like the serrated edge of a giant key.
As evening stole across Gyodong, I climbed the island’s highest peak. The acute-angled sunshine filtered through the canopy to texture the forest floor, and pine trees flavoured the air. At the top, I came across two local farmers, talking quietly after a
