Rip Van Winkle went to sleep for 20 years and had a shock when he woke up and returned to his home town where

Rip Van Winkle went to sleep for 20 years and had a shock when he woke up and returned to his home town, where his wife was dead and his daughter married. Other tour operators are Far East Gateways (0161 945 4321); Jetset Holidays (0161 236 6657); and AsiaWorld (01483 724883).. Korea must be reunited."And indeed it will be - maybe even by the end of the century, ordinary people keep telling you in Seoul. But until then we have Panmunjom as a reminder of, among other things, how the military loves to play war games; and of how the tragic and the ridiculous go hand in hand whenever governments and armies get in the way of ordinary people and common sense.FACT FILEGetting thereCheapest return flight London-Seoul currently with Air France via Paris, from pounds 630.AccommodationRanges from international to quaintly local and cheap.Getting aboutDay trips from Seoul to Panmunjom (approximately pounds 45, Monday to Saturday) can be arranged through the Korea National Tourism Corporation (0171- 409 2100).OthersSilk Steps (0117 940 2800) offer a seven-day "Ancient Temples" tour of Korea, inclusive of bed and breakfast, flights, transportation and guide from pounds 962. Why do we call it Freedom Highway? Because one day Korea will be free Korea will be reunited. He'd been in the propaganda village a few days before, and had heard all this in reverse. "It's all bullshit," was Eddie's comment.Finally it was back to Camp Bonifas, to gaze at the pictures of distinguished visitors (mainly US politicians); to read the comments in the visitors' book ("very informative"; "a lesson in reality"); and finally, to down a long-awaited beer in the mess.Heading back to Seoul Mr Kim abandoned his anti-communist rhetoric and turned his attention to the new road into the capital "Now we are driving on the Freedom Highway.

Communist slogans were daubed on the hillside, and here Sergeant Manfull tried his hand at humour. "That one says, 'Coke is the Real Thing'." This brought a ripple of laughter, but not from the two ladies from Virginia, who had already retreated back to the safety of the coach. Two American officers, attempting to clip back a poplar tree by their checkpoint, were hacked to death by a mob of North Koreans. (Grim photographs of this event line the walls of Camp Bonifas.) Two days after the killings, the Americans mounted what Sergeant Manfull described, with pride, as "the most expensive tree-felling operation in history".Fifty Korean martial arts specialists were brought in to chop the tree down, backed up by a squadron of GIs. Speakers on the hillside blasted out music intended to "disrupt" life in the South You could barely hear it. The tree was felled, and a plaque now commemorates the spot.We gazed at the North Korean propaganda village a few hundred yards away. The North had objected to the size of the South's, and brought in a bigger one The South then did the same.

This went on until the flags themselves were too big to fit into the conference room. A new round of talks was then scheduled to determine appropriate flag size...Perhaps this manifest idiocy would seem funny were it not for the occasional outbreak of violence in the JSA. First, it seemed, there had been the issue of the flags on the table. Here, on a green baize table, the border between North and South was delineated by the microphone cable. Gathered round in a horseshoe, some of us technically on North Korean soil, we listened to Sergeant Manfull describe the nature of the talks between the two sides: talks which have now been going on for more than 40 years.