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<\/p>\nRedefining the term rogue state through its isolationism, controversial nuclear weapons programmed and missile testing, North Korea is probably the most mysterious country in the world today and one almost entirely untouched by tourism. Off the beaten path seems…<\/p>\n
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Redefining the term rogue state through its isolationism, controversial nuclear weapons programmed and missile testing, North Korea is probably the most mysterious country in the world today and one almost entirely untouched by tourism. Off the beaten path seems too slight a term for a nation that admits fewer than 2000 Westerners a year, and whose overwhelming attraction is its isolation and backwardness.<\/p>\n
Here the Kim dynasty, which began life as a Soviet-sponsored communist government in the 1950s, has evolved into a hereditary dictatorship owing far more to Confucianism than Marxism. The founder of the state, Kim Il Sung, may have died in 1994, but he is still the president of the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea (the name locals prefer for their country). His son, a man who has only ever uttered one sentence in public (it was \u2018Long Live the Victorious Korean People\u2019s Army\u2019 at a rally in Pyongyang in the early 1990s), continues to rule like a medieval monarch, an unknown quantity with nuclear weapons and a huge army at his beck and call, giving sleepless nights to governments in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington.<\/p>\n
A trip to North Korea is strictly on its government\u2019s terms, and it\u2019s essential to accept that you\u2019ll have no independence during your trip \u2013 you\u2019ll be accompanied by two government-approved local guides at all times and only hear a very one-sided view of history throughout the trip. Those who can accept these terms will have a fascinating trip into another rather unsettling world. Simply to see a country where the Cold War is still being fought, where mobile phones and the internet are unknown, and where total obedience to the state is universally unquestioned is, for many, reason enough to visit.<\/p>\n
Getting Started
\nTrips to North Korea usually run like clockwork. Two guides will accompany you every\u00acwhere you go outside the hotel and control what you see and the spiel you hear while seeing it. Forward planning is a must: almost everything you want to see needs to be approved before your arrival as ad hoc arrangements makes the guides very nervous and thus less fun to be around. That said, itineraries are always provisional and some things are usually cancelled at the last moment for no discernable reason, although something else will always be substituted in its place.<\/p>\n
The best option is to enjoy a positive relationship with your guides (who don\u2019t make the decisions; they simply enforce them and monitor you during your stay), as once they trust you, they\u2019ll help you make the most of your trip. Days are long in North Korean tourism \u2013you\u2019ll see a surprising amount in just a four- day tour, and possibly be burned out on a full-week tour.
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\nWhen to go
\nThe best time to plan a trip is during the Arirang Mass Games (mid-August until mid-October most years) or during a national holiday. Special performances, which have been rehearsed for months, can be included in the itinerary. During these periods train and plane tickets are harder to obtain, so ensure that you have booked well in advance. In general, the most pleasant months for a visit are April, May, June, September and October. July and August are often unpleasantly humid and overcast. Tours don\u2019t usually run in the winter: they finish in November, and then start again in March. The month of February sees the Great Leader\u2019s birthday and foreigners are particularly unwelcome at this time of year. Those finding themselves in North Korea in winter will find power shortages common (although not usually in hotels) and it\u2019s generally a cold and miserable time to visit.<\/p>\n
Getting there & away
\nBeijing is now the only real transport hub for people entering North Korea, offering both regular trains and flights to Pyongyang. Traffic entering through Russia from Vladivostok \u2013which is still a theoretical possibility \u2013 has fallen off to a trickle. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that tourists are often obliged to pick up their visas in Beijing, thus making the use of other routes impossible.<\/p>\n
Land<\/strong><\/p>\n Train The North Korean train is actually just two carriages attached to the main Beijing\u2013Dandong train, which are detached at Dandong (Chinese side) and then taken across the Yalu River Bridge to Sinuiju (Korean side), where more carriages are added for local people. Non-Koreans remain in their original carriages.<\/p>\n The trains usually spend about four hours at the border for customs and immigration \u2013 two hours at Dandong and two hours at Sinuiju. You may wander around the stations and take photos, but ask permission first and obey the directives of signs and officials about going outside.<\/p>\n Sinuiju station will be your first introduction to North Korea and the contrasts with China will be quite marked. Everything is squeaky-clean and there are no vendors plying their goods. A portrait of the Great Leader looks down from the top of the station, and at all other train stations in North Korea.<\/p>\n Soon after departing Sinuiju, you\u2019ll be served lunch. The food is excellent and the service is fine. Make sure you have some small denomination euro notes to pay for the meal (about \u20ac5), as this is not usually included in tours. There are no facilities for changing money at Sinuiju or on the train. The dining car is for the use of non-Koreans only.<\/p>\n Your guide will meet you on arrival at Pyongyang train station and accompany you to your hotel. Likewise, when you leave North Korea, your guide will bid you farewell at Pyongyang train station or the airport and you then travel to China unaccompanied. Be very careful taking pictures from the train in North Korea. While you\u2019ll get some great opportunities to snap everyday DPRK scenes, do not take pictures in stations as this will cause big trouble if you are caught. Entering the destination<\/strong><\/p>\n Entering the country Air Air Koryo (10-6501 1557\/1559; fax 6501 2591; Swissotel Bldg, Hong Kong-Macau Center, Dongsi Shitau Lijiao, Beijing 100027) This building adjoins the Swissotel, but the entrance is around the back. You must have a visa before you can pick up your ticket, or Korea International Travel Company (KITC) can pick it up for you (it charges 10% commission).<\/p>\n Costs As a rough guide, solo travelers should bank on paying about \u20ac250 per day for guides, hotel and full board. This can be reduced to around \u20ac130 per day if you go as part of a group. Note that the euro and Chinese yuan are the accepted currency for visitors to use and that small change in both currencies (euro coins and Yuan in denominations of under 50) is a huge advantage as most places can\u2019t change big notes.<\/p>\n Once in North Korea, the only major expenses will be the souvenirs and other gifts that are on sale at every tourist attraction. Apart from evening drinks and telephone\/fax costs, there is little opportunity to spend your money elsewhere. It\u2019s customary to tip the guides at the end of each tour, so budget a minimum of \u20ac20 per guide for this.<\/p>\n History In the 17th century, Korea became a vassal state of China and was cut off from outside contact until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894\u20131895. Following Japan’s victory, Korea was granted independence. By 1910, Korea had been annexed by Japan, which developed the country but never won over the Korean nationalists, who continued to agitate for independence. Hoping to unify the Koreas under a single Communist government, the North launched a surprise invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950. In the following days, the UN Security Council condemned the attack and demanded an immediate withdrawal.<\/p>\n President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. air and naval units into action to enforce the UN order. The British government followed suit, and soon a UN multinational command was set up to aid the South Koreans.<\/p>\n The North Korean invaders swiftly seized Seoul and surrounded the allied forces in the peninsula’s southeast corner near Pusan. In a desperate bid to reverse the military situation, UN Commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered an amphibious landing at Inchon on Sept. 15 and routed the North Korean army. MacArthur’s forces pushed north across the 38th parallel, approaching the Yalu River.<\/p>\n Prompted by this successful counteroffensive, Communist China entered the war, forcing the UN troops into a headlong retreat. Seoul was lost again, and then regained. Ultimately, the war stabilized near the 38th parallel but dragged on for two years while negotiations took place. An armistice was agreed to on July 27, 1953.<\/p>\n Kim Il Sung’s death on July 8, 1994, introduced a period of uncertainty, as his son, Kim Jong Il, assumed the leadership mantle. Negotiations over the country’s suspected possession of atomic weapons dragged on, but an agreement was reached in June 1995 that included a provision for providing the North with a South Korean nuclear reactor.<\/p>\n The nuclear standoffs that characterized the mid-1990s were overshadowed when famine struck the nation’s 24 million inhabitants in 1998 and 1999. Two years of floods had been followed by severe droughts in 1997 and 1998, causing devastating crop failures. Because of a lack of fuel and machinery parts, and weather conditions that encouraged parasites, only 10% of North Korea’s rice fields could be worked. The staggering food crisis necessitated foreign aid. In the fall of 1999, the severe famine, which claimed an estimated 2 million to 3 million lives, had begun to wane. Malnutrition and hunger, however, continued to plague North Korea into the mid-2000s. Thousands have attempted to flee to China or South Korea, and only few have evaded capture. Those who do not escape face torture or execution.<\/p>\n North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive societies, has been accused of egregious human-rights violations, including summary executions, torture, inhumane conditions in prison camps, which hold up to 200,000 prisoners, and denial of freedom of expression and movement. Access to the country is strictly limited and North Korea’s domestic media is tightly controlled, making it difficult to substantiate the accusations. Some nongovernmental organizations, however, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have spoken to North Korean refugees who have experienced such persecution.<\/p>\n In Sept. 1998, North Korea launched a test missile over Japan, claiming it was simply a scientific satellite, raising suspicions regarding North Korea’s nuclear intentions. In 1999, North Korea agreed to allow the United States to conduct ongoing inspections of a suspected nuclear development site, Kumchangri. In exchange, the U.S. would increase food aid and initiate a program for bringing potato production to the country. In Jan. 2002, President Bush described North Korea as part of an \u201caxis of evil.\u201d Such open hostility marked a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward North Korea from the Clinton administration’s policy of engagement.<\/p>\n North Korea stunned the world in late 2002 with two admissions. In September, the government acknowledged that it had kidnapped about a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s for the purposes of training North Korean spies. In October, confronted with U.S. intelligence, North Korea admitted that it had violated a 1994 agreement freezing its nuclear-weapons program and had in fact been developing nuclear bombs. Since 2002, North Korea has vacillated between affirming and denying that it already has nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n In late December 2002, North Korea expelled UN weapons inspectors from the country, and in January 2003 it announced it was officially withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In July, North Korean officials reported that the country had reprocessed enough plutonium to build six nuclear bombs. Kim has regularly used threats and hostile acts to try to wring aid from the international community, but it was difficult to decipher how he expected to accomplish his aims\u2014economic aid and a safeguard against U.S. attack\u2014through such brinkmanship. Refusing to bow to North Korea’s demands, the United States informed the nation’s diplomats that it would not begin to negotiate until North Korea first dismantled its nuclear program. China took on the role of mediator between North Korea and the U.S., urging less inflexibility on both sides. Meetings between officials from the U.S., North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan in 2003, 2004, and 2005 ended in deadlock.<\/p>\n In July 2006, North Korea launched seven missiles\u2014the long-range Taepodong-2 missile (which failed) and six medium-range ones\u2014roiling its neighbors and much of the rest of the world. It was North Korea’s first major weapons test in eight years. North Korea again sparked international outrage in October, when it tested a nuclear weapon. President Bush called the test a \u201cthreat to international peace and security\u201d and called for sanctions against North Korea.<\/p>\n A breakthrough was finally reached in February 2007, when North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear facilities and allow international inspectors to enter the country in exchange for about $400 million in oil and aid. In July, the country followed up on the February agreement, shutting down its weapons-making nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency verified the move. North Korea went a step further in October, announcing it would disable its nuclear facilities and disclose to international monitors an accounting of all of its nuclear programs by the end of 2007. It failed, however, to make the disclosure.<\/p>\n In April 2007, parliament fired Prime Minister Hong Song Nam and named former army and navy minister Kim Yong-Il as his successor.<\/p>\n For the first time in 56 years, trains passed between North and South Korea in May 2007. While the event was mostly symbolic, it was considered an important step toward reconciliation. South Korea hopes that eventually a trans-Korean railroad will provide easier access to other parts of Asia. Given North Korea’s failing infrastructure, such a railroad, however, is years away from becoming a reality.<\/p>\n In October 2007, Kim Jong Il and South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun met for their second ever inter-Korean summit. The leaders forged a deal to work together on several economic projects and agreed to move toward signing a treaty that would formally end the Korean War. Hopes for an eventual denuclearized North Korea were raised again in May 2008, when the country turned over to U.S. officials about 18,000 pages of documents detailing its efforts in 1990, 2003, and 2005 to reprocess plutonium for nuclear weapons. It did not, however, hand over information on its uranium program and its efforts to sell nuclear material. The country went further in June, when it turned over to China a list of its nuclear facilities as well as information on the amount of reprocessed plutonium in its possession and destroyed a cooling tower at its main reactor in Yongbyon. The U.S. in turn said it would remove North Korea from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism and lifted some sanctions against the country. In July, the U.S., China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, and Japan announced another deal that will have international inspectors visiting North Korea’s nuclear facilities to confirm that it has shut down its main processing facility at Yongbyon. In return, North Korea will receive financial and energy assistance.<\/p>\n The progress reached in the summer toward denuclearizing North Korea seemed to have ground to a halt by September as officials said they planned to restart the plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and banned UN inspectors from the plant. The move followed complaints by North Korean officials that the U.S. had not removed the country from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism and reports that President Kim had suffered a debilitating stroke, leaving many to wonder who is calling the shots in the reclusive country. The diplomatic roller coaster continued its unpredictable course in October, when the U.S. State Department removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after North Korea agreed to give international inspectors access to its nuclear plant at Yonbyon and to continue disabling its plutonium-processing facility.<\/p>\n
\nThere are four trains each week in either direction between Beijing and Pyongyang via Dandong and Sinuiju, the border towns of China and DPRK respectively. They run Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. On each day, train No 27 leaves Beijing at 5.48pm and arrives at Pyongyang the next day at 6.05pm (about 23 hours). Going the other way, train No 26 departs from Pyongyang at 10.10am arriving in Beijing at 9am. The fare each way is \u20ac75 for a soft sleeper. In contrast to the plane, it\u2019s possible to pick up your train tickets to Pyongyang without a DPRK visa.<\/p>\n
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\nWhen leaving North Korea, you can link up with the Trans-Siberian at Dandong, China. To make this connection you need to reserve your tickets with CITS (China International Travel Company) or KITC in Beijing beforehand.<\/p>\n
\nImmigration is rather severe, but straightforward, as the major hurdle is getting the visa in the first place. Your guides will take your passports for the duration of your stay in North Korea. This is totally routine, so do not worry about them being lost.<\/p>\n
\nThe national airline Air Koryo, running a fleet of old Soviet Tupolevs, flies to Beijing, Shenyang and Vladivostok. The most popular route is from Beijing, from where flying time to Pyongyang is just over an hour. There are three flights per week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in each direction, and a return flight costs \u20ac300. The international flight codes are JS151 and JS152. The weekly flight from Vladivostok is the second most popular; going in both directions every Thursday, while there\u2019s a flight to\/from Shenyang on both Wednesday and Saturday. China Southern Airlines has also recently restarted flights from Beijing, currently on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. Pyongyang\u2019s airport code is FNJ.<\/p>\n
\nAs a tourist, North Korea is no budget destination. Opportunities to cut costs by staying in youth hostels do not exist. As well as paying for your bed and board in advance, you will also have to pay for two guides and a driver, making group tourism one of the few measures that can save you money.<\/p>\n
\nThe ancient history of the Korean peninsula can be traced to the Neolithic Age, when Turkic-Manchurian-Mongol peoples migrated into the region from China. The first agriculturally based settlements appeared around 6000 B.C. Some of the larger communities of this era were established along the Han-gang River near modern-day Seoul, others near Pyongyang and Pusan. According to ancient lore, Korea’s earliest civilization, known as Choson, was founded in 2333 B.C. by Tan-gun.<\/p>\n
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\nAfter Japan’s surrender at the conclusion of World War II, the Korean peninsula was partitioned into two occupation zones, divided at the 38th parallel. The USSR controlled the north, with the U.S. taking charge of the south. In 1948, the division was made permanent with the establishment of the separate regimes of North and South Korea. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established on May 1, 1948, with Kim Il Sung as president.<\/p>\n
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\nTension with South Korea eased dramatically in June 2000, when South Korea’s president, Kim Dae Jung, met with North Korea’s President Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang. The summit marked the first-ever meeting of the two countries’ leaders. But efforts toward reconciliation fizzled thereafter.<\/p>\n
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\nThe New York Philharmonic played a concert in Pyongyang in February 2008. It was the first time an American cultural group performed in the country and the largest American delegation to visit North Korea since the Korean War. The orchestra played pieces by Dvorak, Gershwin, and Wagner, as well as the “Star-Spangled Banner” and a traditional Korean folk song.<\/p>\n