FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2008
Day 15: Friday May 30 - Kaesong, North Korea
Most people don't know that it's now possible for tourists to visit North Korea from South Korea. Until recently, the only way to get to North Korea was to go through the hassle of getting a Chinese visa, then go to Beijing and apply for a North Korea visa, and then fly from Beijing to Pyongyang and go on an organized tour. But now there are two options for getting into the North from Seoul. About 10 years ago, Hyundai Asan began offering tours to the Mount Kumgang tourist area in North Korea. Currently they offer a 3-day tour to this area, but you don't get to see the real North Korea. You are just taken to a national park area for three days and trapped in your hotel at night. In 2004, Hyundai Asan began developing an industrial park in the city of Kaesong, North Korea to allow South Korean companies to setup factories and hire North Korean workers. This park helps create much needed jobs in North Korea and allows South Korean companies to take advantage of the cheap labor. Just six months ago, Hyundai Asan began offering a 1-day tour of the tourist sites in Kaesong. The exciting thing about this tour is that most of the tourist sites are in the middle of the city of Kaesong, so tourists get to see a real North Korean city and real people even though they're not allowed to interact with or take pictures of them. This is the tour that I signed up for. I was able to book it online from the GOnSEE Korea travel agency for around $185 which includes the all day tour (in Korean), bus transportation to/from Seoul, and lunch.
Another early day... I had to wake up at 4:30am to take a cab to the spot where a bus would pick me up and take me to border. The bus arrived at Imjingak around 7:00am where I had to register, get my pass for entry into North Korea that I must wear along with my passport around my neck at all times, check all items that are not allowed into North Korea (mobile phones, magazines, MP3 players, etc.) into lockers, and then go through South Korean Immigration and Customs where they put an exit stamp on my passport. The whole arrival and checkin was pretty chaotic because it was very unorganized and there were hundreds of people there. It was even more difficult for me because all the instructions were given in Korean and I wasn't sure what to do, but I got through it. By the way, I'm going on this tour solo, no friends to guide me around today. After checking out of South Korea, we exit to a parking lot of a dozen buses. The tour is going to be a dozen busloads of people and I am assigned to one of the buses. I find my bus and board and soon our dozen buses are traveling across the DMZ to the north side of the border. When I stop seeing South Korean and American soldiers and start seeing North Korean soldiers, it occurs to me that almost everyone on the tour is Korean except for a few Japanese, and I appear to be the only Westerner on the tour. I start getting concerned about being the only white guy crossing the border and having my US passport around my next for all to see and wondering how safe I am with no more UN troops around. We arrive at the North Korean immigration building a few minutes later. Everything I'm carrying gets searched on entry and the customs officials do not look friendly. The woman checking my bag found a Seoul tour magazine I had in my bag and looked through every page of it before decided it was okay. I showed my passport and entry pass (which acted as my visa) to the immigration official and he stamped my pass. They don't stamp your passport because they don't want to cause any problems with your home country. Around 8:30am we got back on the buses and our brainwashed North Korean guide joined the tour. I couldn't actually understand anything he said all day, but I do know that he never smiled and he often raised his voice and sounded angry. He did sing us a song while on the bus which was extremely awkward.
The first stop was the Parkyeun Waterfall where we spent most of the morning. We were never allowed to take pictures while we were on the bus, but when we got to one of these tourist areas we could take as many pics as we wanted to. But I didn't really come on the tour to see these sights. The waterfall was nice, and we hiked around the area and saw a little temple where I drank some water that's supposed to add 10 years to my life. I met some Koreans that spoke English and they offered to help me throughout the day which was helpful. But more interesting to me was the bus ride to and from the waterfall. We got to pass through the city of Kaesong and the industrial park as well as some farmland. The first thing I notice is that are no cars on the streets. Everyone in the city is walking or riding bicycles. This looks really weird because it's a fairly big city and there are big wide streets everywhere. Most of the people I saw walking or riding bikes were single-file. People didn't seem to be even talking to each other. The people are all wearing really drab colors. Many of them are dressed the same and I notice that almost all the women in the city have the exact same handbag. It felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Looking around the city, I see lots of apartment buidings. They all look really run down. Everything looks run down. The other thing I notice is that there are no stores or businesses, or at least there are no signs for any. The only signs or pictures in the city are about how wonderful Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung are or other propaganda messages. You can tell that these people are poor. The strangest thing is that there are people everywhere but it's so quiet. The main reason for this is probably the fact that there are North Korean soldiers everywhere... several on each city block, keeping the people in line and making sure none of them come anywhere near us tourists. If they find out we just paid $1 for a cup of coffee (one week's pay for them), they might figure out that North Korea isn't as great as they're being told it is and Kim Jong-il can't let that happen. But he desperately needs our dollars so he has to allow these tours to come in. While most of the people in the city appear afraid to even look at us with all the guards around, the ones in their apartment windows and others behind fences take a good look at us. The children, who are less afraid, wave to us. And that is why I don't feel guilty about paying nearly $200 that I know is going directly to the evil government. It's important for these people, especially the kids, to see outsiders and to see that we're not as bad as they're told we are. Even when we were driving through miles of farmland, there were soldiers standing in the fields making sure that some farmer doesn't wander over to our buses. It was crazy.
At noon we went to a restaurant for lunch. There were long tables setup like a cafeteria and we all ate together. We each had our own setting of several side dishes. I couldn't really tell what the main course was supposed to be. It might have been a small bowl of soup, but to me it looked like just side dishes. We were served by several young North Korean women who brought us our food and refilled our tea cups. The food was pretty good. Outside the restaurant there were a couple of gift shops. I went inside one and everything in it looked decades old. Things looked like they'd been sitting on the shelves for years. I purchased some North Korean tourist guides and some buttons and pins. I wanted to buy some books, but a South Korean guide told me that the books that I was looking at were not allowed by South Korean customs so I put them back. After lunch we went to an old school called Sungyangseowon and then to Seonjuk Bridge where Jeong Mong-ju, a renowned scholar was murdered in the 1300s. Later we went to the Goryeo Museum where I visited another gift shop. This one was selling old postage stamps and I bought two books full of old military propaganda stamps. I was a little worried about getting these into South Korea and the USA, but luckily I never got searched. We drove around the city of Kaesong a little more and then headed back to the border for customs and immigration. The North Korean customs official checked everyone's camersa to make sure we didn't take any pictures of anything we weren't supposed to. I passed the test and the immigration official stamped my entry pass and let me exit, but he kept the pass. We got back on the bus, drove across the DMZ, went through South Korean immigration and customs, and then back to Seoul at around 6:00pm.
Even though we spent most of the day at lame tourist sites, the trip was completely worth it for the chance to see the city. This tour was one of the highlights of my trip and North Korea is absolutely the most bizarre place I've even been in my life. I'm really glad I went. I would actually like to see more of North Korea and hopefully someday I will be able to. I would definitely recommend this tour to anyone in South Korea. And other than my inital fear when crossing the border, I felt completely safe during the entire trip.
Here are my DMZ and Kaesong photos.
