I have been privileged to travel across much of the world in my life, but nothing quite prepared me for North Korea; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK as it is (ironically) called when you are there. It is a country unlike anywhere else I have ever been.
Landing at “Pyongyang International Airport” from Beijing (the only other air route in is from Vladivistock), I was a bit thrown by the gleaming new airport building – spotlessly clean and uniformed staff everywhere. A lot of people considering that we were about the only flight in that day.
So to my first DPRK experience – Immigration. We are used to seeing checks for drugs or excess duty free alcohol & tobacco, but not here (well, when you can buy 20 cigarettes in a hotel for the inflated tourist price of 7 pence…) All of our bags were opened and meticulously searched and out mobile phones given a good going over. They took out and searched through any books brought in and logged the number of them to check for the same number on the way out.
Fortunately, we had a lengthy briefing by the wonderful Koryo Tours, our guides, before we left Beijing (you can’t enter the company unaccompanied) and woe betide you if you take in a bible or anything that is negative about the Government or especially the Kim family. It is even an offence to fold a newspaper if that
So, I spent a week visiting all the highlights of the country, from endless murals & statues of The Great Leader & The Dear Leader to immaculate schools (our local guides spoke flawless English).
Highlights? Meeting (and dancing!) with locals in the Park on Foundation Day was an amazing experience – yes you can actually rub shoulders with the locals – as was trying the local beers, which are superb. Then there is a visit to the 38th Parallel, which is the un-crossable border with South Korea, famous for the blue friendship huts where discussions take place.
Lowlights? You only get to see what the local guides want you to see – and our coach party had one local ‘guide’ for every four tourists to steer us back on track if we wandered off. Oh, and long coach journeys were bone-shakingly excruciating. Local roads are made of concrete, there being no oil to make tarmac.
Most memorable part? Visiting the Mausoleum of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. It is a deeply significant religious experience for locals and a huge privilege to be invited to visit and bow to the embalmed corpses of the two late leaders. Fascinating and totally bizarre.
We left DPRK on a sealed train bound for Beijing, stopping for three hours on the border when they checked everything again, especially all photos, deleting any they didn’t like.
They just looked & smiled at my duty-free bottle of Black Water-Snake Liqueur, a local speciality (don’t try it, it is absolutely foul).
Peter Webber, May 2019
