I recently traveled to South Korea with a friend of mine and fellow contributor to Travelers Digest, Kurtis Sherwood. While there we decided to seize the once in a life time opportunity to travel across the DMZ and into the world’s most secretive state… North Korea!
It’s not going to be easy for me to explain North Korea, it’s truly a country like no other. But I digress.
Our trip started early at four-thirty in the morning in central Seoul. There we waited for the bus for our pre-arranged tour to the North Korean city of Kaesong. Normally guided tours aren’t our style, but that is the only way Americans and South Koreans are allowed to visit the DPRK. As it turns out our nations are not in the good graces of Kim Jong Il.
The bus ride from Seoul to the DMZ took about an hour. Once we arrived at the DMZ we had to register with Hyundai, the main overseer of all trips from the ROK to the DPRK. There we were given ID cards which were to be around our necks at all times and would serve as our visas to North Korea.
The tour guides also served us with a list of do’s and don’ts for our trip. We were told that we couldn’t take cell phones, books, or even our iPods into the North. Also we were told not to take pictures of the city, the streets, or of any person. To verify our compliance measures were taken including a review of all pictures upon leaving the nation.
From our stopping point we boarded another bus and this time we crossed the actual DMZ to go to Kaesong. Just a refresher before I continue, the DMZ is the line of demarcation between South Korea and North Korea. It’s also the most heavily militarized border in the world, as the two sides are still officially in a state of war.
From the bus we couldn’t see many signs of the militarization, just a few scattered soldiers. On the horizon there were two gigantic flagpoles, one with a South Korean flag, and the other with a North Korean flag. A proverbial measuring contest of sorts. Neither of us could tell which was larger, but I have no doubt that both sides have laid claim.
After a few minutes we officially crossed into North Korea. There were some border formalities, not a big deal. Kurt and I asked for stamps in our passports for souvenirs as the usual routine at the border is a stamp of your visa card. At first I was weary about having a North Korean stamp in my passport as they are on the State Department’s list of ’state sponsored terrorism’ and I was visiting the United States immediately after our trip. However Kurt reassured me, pointing out the miniscule chances of me running into a border agent who could read Korean.
The part of the country we were entering was the ’special economic zone’ of Kaesong. The region had received a lot of investment from South Korean multinationals and as such was one of only two places in the country that southerners could visit.
Shortly after re-boarding our bus we picked up our military escorts. Several SUV’s filled with North Korean soldiers who would guide our bus through the streets to the designated tourist sights and prevent us from taking any disallowed photos. There were also a few North Korean representatives placed on the bus at this time.
It’s hard to describe the scene that could be seen from the bus’ windows. The city was a virtual ghost town, there were large roads but there was no traffic. People walking were spread out in great distance from one another and gave the vague impression of refugees. Soldiers were everywhere, on every street, standing at attention. They could even be seen in some very unusual places, I saw one soldier in the distance standing at attention in the middle of some railroad tracks. Another just standing in an empty field, one more could be found standing under a tree next to a cow. (I was later told this was to prevent us from taking photos out of the bus’ windows, and that each soldier had in his possession a red flag which he could raise to halt the convoy. But still, unless the cow was in possession of state secrets?)
Another thing that was very apparent was that we were truly in a Communist nation. Now I have been to many ‘Communist’ nations. However North Korea was different, North Korea was actually Communist as Marx must have intended himself. There were no shops, no stores, no products for people to purchase. Everything was rationed out, it remains the only country I’ve ever been to (out of more than eighty) that didn’t have soft drinks.
Propaganda posters were also abundant, our tour guide took the liberty of translating a few, one of which said ‘Don’t buy American products’.
Our first stop on our tour was the Barkyeon Waterfall. As soon as our bus came to a stop the soldiers and tour operators fanned out, forming a human perimeter so we couldn’t ‘escape’ into the countryside.
I know it sounds as if I’m being critical but I’m just trying to convey the singularity of the experience. There was however to be no denying of the natural beauty. The waterfall was amazing!
We spent about two hours at the waterfall before boarding the bus back into the city. On the way into Kaesong we crossed over the country’s main highway connecting the city to the capital Pyongyang. There was no traffic as far as the eye could see, eerie to say the least.
The restaurant where we ate lunch was part of a tourist complex, completely surrounded by walls. After our bus pulled into the parking lot they shut the gate behind us.
After lunch we went around to a few more cultural sights, nothing too special. It was a shame we weren’t allowed to walk the city streets as they looked remarkably more interesting than the generic places we were visiting. A few times throughout the day there were checks of our cameras, in one case Kurt & I were ‘fingered’ by the North Korean observer on our bus as having taken banned photographs. We had. They deleted the photos deemed to be in bad taste off of our cameras. Kurt was not happy about losing the photos so he immediately set about taking a new series of illicit photos.
Our last stop in the North was a museum/souvenir shop. I didn’t even go into the museum as I was dying for some souvenirs. I bought a few things, mostly propaganda about re-unification, and the soldier being the ‘pillar of society’. I also bought a Kim Jong-Il stamp. Unfortunately I was unable to buy a Kim Il-sung pin such as the ones almost every person in North Korea wears one on his or her chest. I attempted to ask about the pin but our personal guide told me it was a taboo topic of discussion unbefitting a foreigner such as myself.
Only after the purchase of the souvenirs were we informed that taking the items (Communist propaganda) into South Korea was illegal and they would be seized at the border. In other words, a challenge was set for us. Gratefully a fellow tourist on the bus had a backpack and offered to smuggle people’s souvenirs into South Korea. The irony of the South’s totalitarian policies were not lost on us.
A short while later we were back across the border and headed towards Seoul. All in all it was a once in a lifetime experience that was more than worth the two hundred US Dollars we paid to the tour company. I’m not sure the tour is for everyone, but if you’re adventurous and like going to places that few have seen, this is your trip.
UPDATE: Shortly after our departure from the peninsula all crossings of the DMZ were suspended by the DPRK in response to the increasing tension between the two neighbours stemming in part because of the shooting death of a South Korean tourist at the Mount Kumgang tourist resort, and from new ROK President Lee Myung-Bak’s confrontational policies. As it stands we were some of the last tourists to cross the DMZ.
- Dakota Smith
For more travel information:
http://www.travelersdigest.com/north_korea.htm
