A shrine on Mount Odu is provided for those whose ancestral graves are in the North. They desperately need investment in infrastructure and agricultural development. Kim Jong-il may also ask for imports of sophisticated information technology, in which he showed great interest on his recent visit to Beijing. The development gap between North and South is clearly visible from the top of Mount Odu. Another town now taking shape will include landscaped gardens and a giant rollercoaster.
Billboards urge safety at work and the road is clogged with construction trucks.
The highway north from Panmunjom through Kaesong and on to Pyongyang, like all other major roads in North Korea, is almost bare of traffic as a result of fuel shortages and lack of vehicles. In the South, dense traffic streams along the Freedom Road passing Mt Odu to Panmunjom while a network of suburban buses and trains links the satellite towns. But President Gerald Ford vetoed the plan fearing that hostilities would escalate. The DMZ is now home to rare Manchurian cranes and endangered mammals including black bears and Korean deer. But the South Korean ministry of agriculture plans to turn large tracts into massive fields for growing ginseng.