North Korea holidays - behind the Kimchi curtain
My mother was the only person who didn't tell me I was crazy when I said I was going to North Korea. I would be safe once I was inside, she reasoned, drawing on her experience of going into China when it was still closed.
North Korea is a country where very few people dare to go, and where all tours, group and private, must be approved by the state. All foreigners must be accompanied by state-sanctioned guides working for tour 'companies'. It is a time-warp with an in-built detox from the 21st-century Western world.
The ethics of going to a state depicted as being highly unstable and dangerous are murky at best. It's undeniable the country is insular and ruled by an autocratic dynasty, and you also can't avoid the news of its nuclear weapon programme, or the reports of human-rights abuses. But the big draw for anyone interested in going is that it's North Korea!
(I'll continue referring to the country as North Korea, even though its citizens themselves would never call it that: the guides refer to it as DPRK, for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or simply, Korea.)
The day before departing for North Korea, most tour companies will hold a briefing: how to survive customs; what to expect from the guides; and most importantly, rules for behaviour. Don't flash a peace sign or perform a handstand. Don't take pictures of the aeroplane, or selfies in front of a statue of the leaders. Our 12-strong tour group was a mix of Germans, Australians and Europeans. I called us the 'nerd tour' as one woman could speak seven languages and we'd all read the briefing documents several times before arriving in Beijing.
Customs itself is not as harrowing as you would expect: just don't take material that would be found objectionable, such as DVDs of The Interview and Team America, and leave any religious material behind too, just to be on the safe side. We were also warned to bring our own food in case we decided the cold 'mystery' burger (claimed to be chicken) provided on the flight was insufficient.
WHAT'S ON THE MENU?
The food itself, contrary to Christopher Hitchens' complaints when he went 20 years ago for Vanity Fair, is substantial. Fearing each time that the next meal would be inedible, I overate and gained 1.5kg in the week I was there. You may be served classic bibimbap and cold noodles, for example, but without the frills of your local Korean joint. Knives and forks are usually provided, but the spiciness of certain dishes will not be tempered to the Western palate. Although one day we had cucumber, tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches, without crusts, for breakfast.
As for drinking, North Korea is not a teetotal society. There are microbreweries making quite decent beer (you'll find yourself exclaiming how 'not bad' everything is, except for the dog soup, which is spicy and tastes like mutton). Beer is the safest drink to order, as the 'cider' (also called juice) is a non-alcoholic, artificial-tasting drink. As comical as the food and drink can be, there is a constant nag in the back of your mind that you are eating and drinking far better than most of the North Korean population.
Many travellers buy bottled water when in Asian countries. And while you can do the same in North Korea, boiled water is also drinkable, and becomes a literal hot-water bottle if you decide to go in winter and brave the -10°C climate. North Korea likes to build grand monuments out of marble and granite, but isn't able to heat them, partly because of fuel sanctions, partly the sheer amount of space to heat.
WHAT TO BUY
The lack of fuel was obvious even in the Kwangbok department store, where the Pyongyang elite wore their winter coats while shopping. Staples are provided by the state, but anything extra can be purchased using your salary: imported olive oil, perhaps, which had split from the sub-zero temperature; apples dotted with black spots, and imported alcohol (Johnnie Walker, Chivas, Stolichnaya, Asahi and Bavaria Holland beer). A man in military uniform jovially waved a bottle of Ukrainian red wine and smiled at us in the ground-floor supermarket.
Other items I saw for sale included a rowboat, a park bench, municipal-style rubbish bins, even a coat rack shaped like a guitar. The most expensive items were the ones imported from China - importing has allowed a wealthy merchant class to emerge - which included sweaters and jackets for more than €50, and a knock-off Chloé bag for €30.
Prices in the department store were all in North Korean Won, and shopping there is the only opportunity to use the local currency - anything left over is supposed to be exchanged back into foreign currency. The exchange rate at the booth in Kwangbok is far better than you will get elsewhere: the rule of thumb is 1USD to about 100 Won, but the department store offered us a staggering 1USD to 8,000 won. The bank notes are not, as you'd expect, covered in imagery of the leaders and propaganda; it is a more sober affair with pictures of famous locations such as Kim Il-Sung's birthplace and the Arch of Triumph.
The biggest disappointment on my trip to North Korea was that the Kwangbok store was one of the very few places we weren't allowed to take pictures. There were only really two photography rules: any picture of the leaders in any form had to make sure their full bodies were not obstructed; and no pictures of military were allowed unless otherwise stated, including those of train stations and construction, which are controlled by the military.
MOVING AROUND
As much as your movement is restricted, it is surprising how freely the North Koreans let us walk around their side of the demilitarised zone (commonly referred to as the DMZ): the 250km long, 4km-wide strip of land separating the north from the south, reached after passing through numerous rusty gates (although the gates looked aged, they are actually newly installed, after a defector drove through in November 2017).
Usually viewed from the South Korean side, the North Korean building is brown and cold - constructed in marble and granite, of course. We were allowed to wander around the whole building with little restraint, besides the unspoken tethers to our guides, and some tours in the past have taken tourists into the North Korean huts lining the border. The only part we were asked not to photograph was the passage from the reception village to the border.
The DMZ is crawling with military, and the North Koreans like to make sure visitors know the 'real' story behind the Korean War during this visit. That being said, it is part of the guides' rhetoric to talk about the 'American imperialists' every few hours, with the necessity of nuclear armament sprinkled throughout for good measure. You will hear the expression 'travesty of national division' a lot.
ACCOMMODATION
Staying in North Korean is a more expensive and expansive version of a night in Alcatraz - the hotels I stayed at both had gates to keep us in. We stayed in the international hotels, which meant there weren't as many electricity blackouts, although we had to pay to play table tennis in the bunker-like activities room, and the decor was strictly Eighties. But there was a karaoke room in the Yanggakdo Hotel, with 'Hey Jude', 'Auld Lang Syne' and some Kanye West and Katy Perry on the playlist. And at the Dongrim hotel, an adjoining pool complex had its own bar, so we could drink beer in the steamroom.
ASKING QUESTIONS
The experience of going to North Korea is definitely strange. You surrender your freedom to see statues other countries deemed excessive to build, to ride a metro system where the carriage doors are still closed by hand, and to see a 15-minute firework show on New Year's Eve that rivals Disneyland's. And under the ever-present, always-beaming faces of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, you learn that asking 'why?' will never elicit a satisfactory answer. Such as why a North Korean guide at the Tower of Juche Idea spoke with an Australian accent; why Kim Il-Sung was awarded a Medallion of Derbyshire County, and why my ski trip was cancelled the day before it was due to start. (All I was told was that the roads were closed going east, but no missiles were launched in the succeeding days, thankfully.)
This lack of explanation makes it easy to sensationalise the experience by filling in your own blanks. It's easy to tell people back home how a North Korean held a blade to your throat, when you paid to have a shave by a barber; and it's easy to say the subway is staged when you only get off at three stops on a group tour (you can take a whole morning to ride all 13 if you go on a private tour). But that's not in the spirit of the trip, nor fair to the country that has decided to allow you to see it.
Anyone who finds the exclusivity of the trip to North Korea alluring must reconcile themselves with how the currency they're paying for it is going to be used. The money you spend is technically going to the state who will redistribute the funds however it wants. But you're also giving people jobs - even if it's just working in the ski rental year-round (and yes, you can only ski in winter). And you're exposing North Koreans, whose only source of information is through state-run media, to a foreign perspective. The atrocities of labour camps will not be voluntarily brought up by guides - don't count on them even recognising their existence - and frankly, if that bothers you, don't go (also, I challenge those same people to think about their travel to the USA after the existence of the CIA's black sites was recognised).
An experience like this can change your perspective of the world, while giving you plenty of dinner party conversation: you may join a mass dance, like I did, or see Pyongyang from the sky by flying in a Soviet-era helicopter. Interactions with the locals - mostly agog stares - remind you that in these times of strife, most North Koreans just want to get on with their day-to-day lives.
If you want to go to North Korea, go now before it changes, for whatever reason. Although the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office currently recommends against all non-essential travel to North Korea, it really depends on what you consider to be non-essential.
Brian Ng travelled to North Korea with Koryo Tours on a NYE 2018 trip that cost approximately £1,068 for 5 nights. Prices for Koryo Group trips start from approximately £668
A PHOTOGRAPHIC SAFARI OF NORTH KOREA
Like an African safari, there are certain sights you want to capture on your camera (make sure you take one with good image stabilisation because the roads are splattered with pot holes)
Traffic wardens. They dress in royal-blue winter coats, and are handily not part of the military.
Propaganda, almost always made of mosaic or painting. I found the propaganda got a lot more violent, and frequent, when we ventured out of Pyongyang to Kaesong (the entry point to the DMZ) and Sinuiju (the only North Korean city that borders a Chinese border city, Dandong).
Taxis. A far more common sight in Pyongyang than in the provinces, but can be seen driving without passengers on occasion.
Even rarer, cars with yellow number plates. These signify private cars, which are gifted by the government to famous actors and actresses, sportspeople, etc; though they remain under the ownership of the government.
Fuel stations. In a country under heavy fuel sanctions, it's unsurprising that I saw a total of three, all bearing the logo of the national airline, Air Koryo.
Pets. Maybe because I was there in winter, but I saw only two dogs who looked domesticated when I was there. Both times I squealed at the sight and forgot to get my camera out in time.