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This is the main road heading south from the capital - again, we were lucky with the traffic.
The roads are kept very tidy by the people who live nearby - they're responsible for short sections of it. And much of the roadway has flowers planted along the side.
The surface is a bit rough in places, making for a bumpy ride if you're travelling in a civilian vehicle... |
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| We stopped for a break at this service station - built, like some western designs, across the carriageway so that you don't have to cross the busy road. |
A Panmunjom guidebook filled us in on the background to the place:
It was here that the US imperialists, who started an aggressive war to swallow Korea whole in June 1950, knelt before the Korean people and signed the Armistice Agreement. It is also here that, after the war, they made many apologies for their criminal military provocations and hostilities... |
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| More from the guidebook...
The senior members of the enemy side and their men in trouble [sic] water |
The border. These blue huts are where the North/South meetings took place (and still do). The border runs through the middle of them - you can see a North Korean soldier standing next to the line.
The steps behind us are in South Korea. Shortly before this picture was taken there were two American soldiers standing there studying us carefully, from some 20m away, through binoculars. |
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| Inside the blue hut.
They take turns having the hut - I'm standing on the other side of the table here, in SOUTH Korea! |
The Korean media has an unusual slant on world events.
For example, here's an extract from a (not untypical) story by the The Korean Central News Agency from a few days ago:
Pyongyang, October 16 (KCNA) -- The United States invited its south Korean running dogs to its embassy in Seoul some days ago and staged a farce of presenting them with letters of thanks for having stood for years against the actions of the people for independence, democracy and reunification under its patronage and backstage manipulation. This was part of its moves to save its shaking colonial rule in south Korea from its collapse as it reflects the crisis of the U.S. colonial rule in south Korea... It goes without saying that those top-class pro-U.S. lackeys and flunkeyists are bound to meet a stern judgement... |
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| Downtown Kaesong.
Kaesong was the old capital of Korea, 800 years ago.
Kaesong is the civic beauty of Korea our guide explained.
Note the man in the middle of the road, directing the traffic.
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