Jean Mackenzie
Seoul correspondent
Joe Smith
Local guides must follow a strict and pre -approved calendar – which, during this visit, included a visit to a new fully supplied pharmacy
Do not insult the leaders. Do not insult the ideology. And don’t judge.
These are the rules that tourist guides are read to Western tourists while they are preparing to cross the border in North Korea, undoubtedly the most secret and repressive country in the world.
Then there is practical information. No telephone signal, no internet, no ticket distributor.
“The North Koreans are not robots. They have opinions, objectives and a sense of humor. And in our briefing, we encourage people to listen to them and understand them,” explains Rowan Beard, who directs young pioneering tours, one of the two Western companies that resumed trips to the country last week, after a five-year hiatus.
Rowan Beard / Young Pioneer Tours
Rowan and a handful of other tour chiefs were authorized to restart operations
North Korea sealed its borders at the start of the pandemic, eliminated diplomats, humanitarian workers and travelers, and making almost know what was going on there.
Since then, he was still isolated from most of the world, based on the support of Russia and China. Many doubted that Westerners were never allowed.
But after years of Cajolery and several false departures, Rowan and some other tour chiefs received the green light to restart operations. He gathered an impatient group of travelers in just five hours, desperate not to miss the opportunity. Most were vloggers and drug addicts, some wishing to check the last country on their list, as well as the strange enthusiast of North Korea.
Last Thursday, tourists, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia, rolled over the border of China in the distant region of Rason for a four-night trip.
Joe Smith
Tourists from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia have rolled over the border for a four-night trip
Among them was YouTuber British, 28, Mike O’Kennedy. Even with his reputation, he was surprised by the level of extreme control. As with all trips to North Korea, tourists have been escorted by local guides, who followed a strict and pre-approved calendar. He included carefully choreographed trips to a beer factory, a fully supplied school and a new pharmacy.
Ben Weston, one of Suffolk’s tour leaders, compared the visit to North Korea to “be on a school trip”. “You can’t leave the hotel without the guides,” he said.
“A few times, I even had to let them know when I wanted to use the toilet,” said Mike. “I never had to do this anywhere in the world.”
Despite the Riding Hood, Mike was able to spot extracts from real life. “Everyone worked, we didn’t have the impression that anyone was hanging out. It was a bit dark to see.”
During his trip to school, a group of eight -year -old children played a dance on ballistic missile animations reaching targets. A video of the show shows girls and boys with red ties, singing, while the explosions are glowing on a screen behind them.
Mike O’Kennedy
Mike has seen a group of eight -year -old children dance in ballistic missile animations
For the moment, tourists are kept away from the capital Pyongyang. Greg Vaczi of Koryo Tours, the other authorized tour company, admits that the current route does not have the “big blow monuments” of Pyongyang. He suspects that the authorities have chosen Rason as a guinea pig because the area is relatively contained and easy to control.
Established as a special economic zone, to test new financial policies, it operates as a mini capitalist enclave in a socialist state. Chinese businessmen run joint businesses with North Koreans and can travel and go out quite freely.
Joe Smith, a experienced traveler in North Korea and former writer of the specialized platform in North Korea NK News, was there during his third trip. “I feel like the more you visit the times you know.
Joe’s highest point was an out -of -service visit to a luxury products market, where people sold jeans and perfumes, as well as fake Louis Vuitton handbags and Japanese washing machines, probably imported from China. Here, tourists were not allowed to take photos – an attempt to hide this consumption bubble from the rest of the country, they suspected it.
“It was the only place where people did not expect us,” said Joe. “It was disorderly and real; a place from North Koreans appeared there. I loved it.”
Joe Smith
Joe visited North Korea four times
But according to the experienced tour chiefs, the group movements were more limited than during previous trips, with less opportunities to walk in the streets, to bring into a hair salon or a supermarket, and to speak to the inhabitants.
Covid was often quoted as reason, said Greg of Koryo Tours. “On the surface, they are still worried. Our luggage has been disinfected on the border, our temperatures have been taken and around 50% of people still wear masks.” Greg cannot determine whether fear is authentic or an excuse to control people.
It is believed that Covid struck northern North Korea, although it is difficult to know the extent of suffering.
Local guides repeated the government line that the virus entered the country in a Ballon sent from South Korea and was quickly eradicated in 90 days. But Rowan, who went to North Korea more than 100 times, felt that Rason had been affected by difficult covid regulations. Many Chinese companies had closed, he said, and their workers had left.
Even Joe, the traveler experienced in North Korea, commented to how dilapidated the buildings were. “The places were weakly lit and there was no heating, apart from our hotel rooms,” he said, noting a trip to a cold, dark and deserted art gallery. “I felt like I was opening the doors just for us.”
Mike O’Kennedy
Some tourists thought that Rason – the area they visited – seemed dilapidated, with “horrible” roads and dilapidated buildings
The photographs of the regime could make North Korea clean and shiny, said Joe, but in person, you realize that “the roads are horrible, the sidewalks are banal and the buildings are strangely built”. His hotel room was old-fashioned and dirty, he said, resembling “the living room of his grandmother”. The whole window was cracked.
“They were five years old to repair things. The North Koreans are so sensitive to what they show tourists. If it is the best they can show, I fear to think what is others,” he said. Most of the country is well hidden, with more than four in 10 people who are undernourished and need help.
Joe Smith
Joe said that his hotel room looked like “her grandmother’s lounge”
One of the rare chances that tourists in North Korea interact with the local population is by their guides, who sometimes speak English. During these recent trips, they were surprisingly well informed, despite the intense propaganda machine and the regime’s information blockade. It is probably because they speak to Chinese businessmen who come and go, said Greg.
They knew Trump’s prices and the war in Ukraine – even that the North Korean troops were involved. But when Joe showed a photo of Syria, his guide was not aware that President Assad had been overthrown. “I carefully explained that sometimes, when people don’t like their leader, they get up and force them, and at the beginning they did not believe me.”
Such conversations should be delicately treated. Strict laws prevent North Koreans from speaking freely. Ask or reveal too much and tourists could put their guide or themselves in danger.
Mike O’Kennedy
Mike said that conversations with international policy guides should be treated carefully
Mike admits that there were moments that made him nervous. During a trip to a friendship in North Russian Korea, he was invited to write in the book of visitors. “I became empty and I wrote something like” I wish world peace “. Then my guide told me that it was an inappropriate thing to write.
“Generally, the guides did an excellent job to feel safe. There was a few moments when I thought, it’s weird.”
For Greg by Koryo Tours, these interactions bring a deeper objective to the tourism of North Korea: “North Koreans have the chance to get involved with foreigners.
But tourism in North Korea is controversial, especially since travelers have been authorized before humanitarian workers and most Western diplomats, including the United Kingdom. Critics, including Joanna Hosaniak of the Citizens Alliance for North Korea of Human Rights, argue that these trips benefit mainly from the regime.
“It is not like tourism in other poor countries, where local populations benefit from additional income. The vast majority of the population did not know that these tourists exist. Their money goes to the state and finally to its soldiers,” she said.
A conversation remained in the head of Youtuber Mike. During her trip to school, he was surprised when a girl, after meeting her, said she hoped to visit the United Kingdom one day. “I didn’t have my heart to tell her that his chances were very, very thin,” he said.
