South Korea: A vacation from the vacation

My time in South Korea can be summarized well into hanging out with the family, trying to put some of the 15-20lbs I lost since the beginning of my trip back on and otherwise enjoying the perks of being in a developed country (e.g. drinking tap water). 

The day after I met my parents in Seoul, we took the KTX (Korean Train Express) to Busan.  The 420Km journey took roughly two and a half hours.  In an Indian train, that same journey would have taken about nine hours.  The weekend in Busan is aptly summarized by the intro.

The next stop was Daejon, where Andy (my brother) teaches English to 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders.  The highlights from Daejon were a night out at Andy’s favorite bar called Santa Clause with the other teachers in the area and watching Andy play telephone with a group of 5^th graders. 

The over shadowing experience during our stay in Seoul and the trip to Korea as a whole was the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) tour.  Technically the Korean War is still going on; a treaty was never agreed upon, only a cease fire.  The DMZ between the two halves of Korea extends two kilometers in both directions from the Demarcation Line that lies along the path of the last troop placements when the cease fire was signed.  In the middle of the DMZ, straddling the Demarcation Line is the JSA (Joint Security Area); this is where most, if not all, of the negotiations between the two nations take place.  In the South’s side there is a small town named… wait for it… wait for it… “Freedom Village” and in North’s side a town named… wait for it… “Propaganda Village.”  In Freedom Village, the South built a 100m tall flag pole; in response, the North built a 160m tall pole.  The South pays the people who live in Freedom Village well and subsidizes their cost of living, including any higher education, in return for the villagers committing to living in the village for at least 280 days of the year, where they are under constant guard/surveillance and must adhere to very strict policies (yay irony); while the North’s Propaganda Village actually contains no people.  All of the buildings are empty shells with only the side towards the South even painted and until a few years ago, there was a system of loud speakers that blasted propaganda up to 16 hours per day.  The JSA was previously common ground and is now divided down the middle due to a series of events where North Korean soldiers attacked the South Korean forces.  During the Cease Fire negotiations, the talks typically lasted for an hour or two.  Only one talk lasted longer, for a total of 11 hours and it was on no other topic than the flags on the table.  The North Koreans repeatedly placed platforms under their flag to raise it above the others.  These are just a few representative tales of the antics between the two halves of Korea.  As horrible as the history and current situation is, I couldn’t help but to have a small chuckle at the whole thing.

Assessment: One working theory on the North Koreans is that they aren’t actually crazy.  They only act it because they have no other option.  In the Cold War, the idea of mutually assured destruction was reliable only because each side believed the other to be sane and didn’t wish the destruction of the world.  If North Korea was rational, they would have to know that they have no chance, leaving them with their best defense as being perceived as insane.  Anyways, just an idea and one that I like to believe because I think I would rather believe that people chose to oppress people in that manner, than that they are inherently evil.  

Nepal: Strike That

The time that Corry Holliday and I were in Nepal was a crucial time for country politically because they were in the process of creating their constitution.  Of the 15 days that we were in the country, there were strikes on 11 of them.  These strikes range in severity from a few shops closing in solidarity, to all roads being blocked by city cabs and busses parked lengthwise across the street, to angry mobs breaking into power stations to shut off electricity to sections of the city. 

In Kathmandu we stayed in the tourist area of Thamel and were more or less confined there because of the political situation.  The less than quarter square mile area contains over 2000 tourist related businesses that can pretty well fit into four categories: hostels, trekking agencies/outfitters, hippy stores and prayer flag stores.  I would love to see all of the professors of the Farmer School of Business try to explain how they all stay in business when they’re virtually identical.  I’m not sure anyone knows… After two days of being stuck in the city due to strikes, we finally got a bus to Pokhara, which is the jumping off point for treks in the Annapurna range.

On our way to Pokhara our bus was held up for about an hour because two Lorries had gotten in a head-on collision and were blocking most of the road.  When I got out and asked around about the crash I learned that it happened about five days ago, but the trucks are too big to be hauled out of the ditch on the side of the road by any tow truck that would fit on the road.  So the plan was to dismantle the trucks and bring them down the mountain piece by piece.  Then I asked why we were waiting, because there was enough room to drive around the crash and, as it turns out, we were only waiting because the people looking at were blocking the way.  The rest of the drive to Pokhara was uneventful.

People who grew up in the ‘90s probably remember a game called Oregon Trail.  The goal is head west across the country in your covered wagon with your family.  You can only carry so much and sometimes bad luck would befall you and you may have to, for example, replace a wheel or trade for supplies that you lost in a storm.  Occasionally the game would just decide that you drank bad water and now you have Dysentery.  Well, that’s more or less what happened next.  When we arrived in Pokhara it was pretty evident that Corry was getting sick, then really sick.  We ended up having to skip the trekking and we hung around Pokhara for a little over a week feeding Corry a heavy regimen of Antibiotics and a few other drugs.  She recovered without incident and we were able to enjoy the rest of our trip.

We were forced to go back to Kathmandu early because there were supposed to be strikes for up to a week starting three days before our flights out of Kathmandu.  With the strikes in effect most of the businesses were only open from 5-8pm; leaving us with not much to do during the days (we couldn’t go explore the city either).  On our second to last day, the strike was less enforced (by the mob) and the barber near hotel was open.  I decided it would be a good time for a hair-cut and shave.  About half way through I hear the outer metal garage door slam shut against the ground.  I cautiously asked what was going on because I was now locked in a small room with three men, one of whom still had a straight razor on my neck.  They calmly replied that a strike parade was going by and that if they left the door open the shop was likely to be looted by the mob.  About a minute later I heard the strike parade going by; the barber translated the chant as, “close Kathmandu, close all businesses, close Nepal.” I was locked in there for about a half hour and left with the best hair cut stories ever.

Corry and I left Nepal more or less unscathed and just in time too because Nepal failed to ratify the constitution a few days after we left.  I read in a newspaper in Seoul that there were some pretty bad protests/riots after that.