North Korea: World's Most Dangerous Bike Path?

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North Korea: World's Most Dangerous Bike Path?

Postby RYP » Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:15 pm

Not really but

Korea's DMZ Border to Become World's Most Dangerous Bike Path?
Where: Panmunjom, Korea
March 29, 2010 at 10:30 AM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

A North Korean underwater mine just blew up a South Korean naval vessel a few days ago, and at the same time as all this tension mounts and the border between Kim Jong-il's communist North Korea and the rest of the world starts to shake, we hear that South Korea is turning some of the Demilitarized Zone into an ecotourism hotspot.

The DMZ has been around since 1953, keeping the two Koreas separated by an untouched area of land 155 miles long and 2 miles wide. Any person setting foot into the area, outside of specified paths and heavily-guarded roads, can be considered to be invading the other side and can be shot on sight. Nonetheless, the UN joint security area at Panmunjom, just north of Seoul and manned by both US and Republic of Korea soldiers, has been bringing tourists to the DMZ for years. We've been there ourselves recently and can say that although more ecotourism is great, we're not so sure about exploiting this controversial area further.

Gallery: At the DMZ between North and South Korea

According to Treehugger, the strip of the DMZ is home to "the Korean Tiger, Asiatic Black bear, and the extreme rare Red-crowned and White-naped cranes." Tigers and bears won't be the only animals watching you; the North Korean presence will be extremely eagle-eyed as "the project will include a bicycle routes and an observation center within limited sections of the ecological corridor, still heavily guarded on both sides by the North and South Korean military."

Will this be the world's most dangerous bike path? The Panmunjom base already has the world's most dangerous putting green, since the other side of the hole is in North Korean territory. Still, we're suckers for things like this and we'd totally take our 15-speed into the DMZ if they let us; we'd just try to not to veer to close to the edge of the path.
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