Land tour to Geumgang set to go

The overland Mount Geumgang tour program, after more than a year of slow progress, is finally taking on momentum. A group of South Koreans is getting ready to test the new route to the scenic resort on Thursday.

In preparation for the cross-border tour, the South Korean government will open a center for customs, immigration and quarantine at the Unification Observatory in Goseong, Gangwon province, from which the overland tour group will depart.

"About 90 Hyundai Asan Corporation employees will go on a trial tour to Mount Geumgang resort using a temporary road link on the east coast," Lee Mi-gyeong, a spokeswoman of Hyundai Asan, the operator of the inter-Korean tour program, said. "The trip is to check on procedures, schedule and time elements of the overland tour program. The group will stay in the Mount Geumgang resort for one night and two days."

Four buses reportedly will transport the pathfinder group, and the bus ride to the North is expected to take an hour and a half.

The overland tour was first agreed in June 2001 between Pyeongyang and Hyundai Asan as a way to rescue the money-losing tour business. At the inter-Korean economic cooperation meeting in August this year, the two Koreas hammered out an agreement to complete a temporary passageway, a narrow two-lane unpaved 29.7-kilometer road connecting border towns of the divided Koreas, by the end of November.

According to Hyundai Asan, the road is now ready to transport the South Korean tourists to the North Korean resort. The temporary passage will be used until 2003, when the two Koreas plan to link their severed railroad and highway on the east coast of the peninsula.

After the first group's return, a second group will visit Mount Geumgang next week to complete the simulation of the overland tour program.

The Unification Ministry said yesterday that it would open a temporary immigration office for the overland Mount Geumgang tour in Goseong. The office will begin operation Thursday to accommodate the Hyundai Asan pioneers. The simplified procedure for border crossing has already been agreed between the United Nations Command and the Ministry of National Defense, in the interest of making the tour operation easier.

by Ser Myo-ja