I’ve been good mates with Kim Jong-un on Facebook for the last few years (I swear he’s the only person who still uses the ‘poke’ feature), so when I decided to come to South Korea I knew I had to pop across the border to say G’day. After consulting with locals, however, I decided that hopping the border would sharply decrease my chances of going home safely and greatly increase my chances of my intestines being blown out my eye sockets, so I instead signed up for a tour of the Demilitarised Zone and take things from there.
Unfortunately, the tour was a bit of a bust. Alright, that’s being kind – it was shit. The only way to visit the DMZ is with one of the dozens of tour companies who take half-day tours there, and they’re all kind of crap. The problems are twofold; firstly, there are so many people visiting the sites at any time threat they’re little more than a crush of humanity. Secondly, the fact is that nothing in the DMZ is particularly interesting. By design it’s an area with basically nothing in it, and the few buildings feel more like tourist traps than actual historical sites. Even our guide, Dean Kang, seemed bored by it.
When Dean told us that we were going to visit the Third Tunnel, I asked him if that’s the arsehole, and he just rolled his eyes and kept going. As it turns out, it’s the third tunnel that the South Koreans discovered coming towards them from the north. They found it back in 1973, it’s about 1.6km along and 70 or so metres below the ground, and was intended to allow soldiers from the North to pour into the South and do them all sorts of nasties.
For some reason that I can’t work out, cameras and phones are banned in the tunnel, so you’ll be spared selfies of me in a stupid yellow hard hat. The tunnel itself is as interesting as masturbating to Rosie O’Donnell porn – it really is just a tunnel full of an endless line of wheezing tourists. The most interesting thing about being there is watching gawky Asian bump their heads on the low roof. The seemingly endless walk through the darness ends up at something very boring indeed – a rock wall with a locked door. I haven’t felt so let down since reading the final pages of any Stephen King book ever.
The next stop on the DMZ Wonder Tour was a lookout that allowed us to have a peak at North Korea. It looks a bit like South Korea, really – no hordes of marching troops or giant nuclear missiles poking around menacingly. They have these big sets of binoculars, so I jumped behind a pair and did my best to spot Kimmy strutting around, but he was nowhere to be seen. I was crushed.
With all that excitement out of the way it was obvious that Dean was trying to kill time, so he took us along to some train station that never had anything to do with North-South relations, other than to serve as a transit point for tourists from Seoul on a slightly more expensive tour. It was at this point that I saw my tour guide’s penis. I’d had four beers and badly needed to urinate, so I raced into the nearest toilet, where Dean was slipping his Old Yeller back into his trousers. He looked at me, I looked at him, and then he raced outside without washing his hands. It made things very awkward for the rest of the day, and Dean refused to look at me during any of his further speeches.
The grand finale of this tour of the DMZ was a stop at some shitty ginseng factory, which had nothing to do with anything. I have no idea what the fuck ginseng is – some sort of root or something – and I don’t care, so I bought a few cans from a 7-Eleven around the corner and drank them in the parking lot while I waited for the others to finish up. I really needed a slash, so I pulled my dick out and wet the bus’s tyres just as Dean and the others came out of the factory.
“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine!” I told Dean, while manages to splash his shiny leather shoes.
The DMZ Tour is pretty shit, but it’s something that probably has to be done while in Seoul. The rigid timelines make it feel like a school excursion, most of the places they take you are boring and unnecessary, and it all comes across as more of a dodgy tourist attraction than a warzone, but it’s there and it sort of has to be seen. Just try to find a guide who doesn’t flash his knob around.
I caught the train back to Hapjeong Station, alone with my disappointment at not finding Kimmy. All those pokes were for nothing. I stepped out of the carriage, fumbled for my ticket, looked up, and then there he was. Kimmy, I discovered, had defected. He was waiting for me all that time and had given up his dream of being a genocidal dictator so that he could be with me. As I raced over his eyes lit up and his arms opened, ready to welcome me into the new life he had forged for himself. Then I noticed that his dick was hanging out of his pants, so I did a 180 and got the fuck out of there. I guess Kimmy headed back over the border and went back to his murderous ways. Shit, we could’ve had world peace if only that dickhead could’ve kept it in his fuckin’ pants.
The Drunk and Jobless World Tour 