Yalu River Broken Bridge — Attraction in Dandong City

If you are one of the few Westerners travelling to North Korea via the border town of Dandong, you will undoubtedly pull into the train station. And if you have some spare time turn right when leaving the station and walk a few blocks to the river and have your first look at North Korea and the Yalu River Broken Bridge. And, spoiler alert, there is no tension. It was in fact quite peaceful and deserted when we came to visit in the morning. A few security guards but they were disinterested in us. We mostly wandered and took pictures of statues and monuments and the bridge of course with the Hermit Kingdom on the other side. Certainly, this is where one can visually see the stark difference between the third world conditions of North Korea on one side of the Yalu River and the affluent, more commercialized condition on the other.

As for the bridge itself, you can pay an admission fee to walk to the end but we chose not to as there didn't seem to be much to attract us to walk on the bridge halfway across the river, especially since in less than an hour we would be taking the train all the way across anyway. Still, a much photographed location with huge political...

Famous damaged bridge between China and North Korea in Dandong. Americans destroyed it during Korean War. Some parts of bridge is open. You can walk along until the end of broken bridge. Nowadays very popular tourist attraction point, well known and visited. This location exists on those historic events. Therefore many restaurants are there. You will get to Dandong by railway. We started from Shenyang to Dandong., maybe it took about 1 and a half hour. Train very modern and fast with air conditioner. So the travel was relaxing. Sometimes North Koreans speak to you. They advertise Korean Snow...

The historical bridge on the Yalu River, which had been originally built by Japan at the beginning of XXth century, to connect Korea with the continental railway in Eurasia. Later back in the 50's the Korean side of the Bridge was badly damaged by the US Army🇺🇲 and never actually rebuilt. Later it was converted to a walkway and a viewing platform. Since then it's been a heritage and a historical site for tourists. At the end of the Broken Bridge one can have a look at North Korea. Worth visiting and an intriguing lesson of world's...