For most of the border along the 38th parallel, the two Koreas are divided by fences, anti-tank barriers and a wide no-man’s-land filled with millions of landmines.
But nothing separates the two warring parties at the “joint security area” in the village of Panmunjom, where an armistice ending fighting in the Korean war was signed in 1953. For some, that can make it a source of temptation.
Jacco Zwetsloot, a former border zone tour guide for US troops stationed in South Korea, said many visitors to the JSA have admitted to a strange urge to step over into the isolated dictatorship ruled by the family of Kim Jong Un for the past 75 years.