A Country Collector's Blog - with a Soft Spot for Hard Places
Hot chicks, cold noodles and a rocket haircut in North Korea
19.01.2018
Even after the US embargo
forbidding it's own citizens from travelling to North Korea, there are currently three travel agencies that offer entry to North Korea: Koryo Group, Juche Tours and Young Pioneer Tours. Booking and visa procedures are simple. Entry is either by daily plane from Beijing, or two planes a week from Vladivostok, or by daily train from China (Dandong).
We flew on Air Koryo's Tupolev aircraft from Beijing (1h15), and had the opportunity to read Kim Jong Un's New Year's Address (with the famous "big red button" and with his wish for re-unification) in the Pyöngyang Times.
Air Koryo is the only airline that received only one star by Skytrax. For six years in a row. What does that say about Skytrax? They have zero credibility ... forget them!
Seated next to us on the plane was North Korea's national football coach Jorn Andersen from Norway with his German wife who live in Pyongyang together.
(Foto: Wikipedia)Hot Chicks in Cold Korea
Cold Noodle, the National Dish
The government of North Korea operates ca. 150 restaurants of the Pyongyang and the Okryu brands - with North Korean staff - in several foreign countries, including in South Korea. Contrary to Western propaganda, there are 65.000 North Koreans working as expats for monumental building projects in foreign countries such as Cambodia, Qatar, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, etc. through a company called Mansudae Overseas Projects.
BTW: Our young guides were well informed about history and world events. One of them had studied in Poland (!) in the 2000s. Her father was a businessman (!) in North Korea and became an artist after retirement.
Pyöngyang, a surprisingly modern capital
The Ryugyong or "Rocket Launch Hotel" was built in 1987 and remained the world's biggest hotel (at 330m and 105 floors) for many years, however it still couldn't be opened, because of the downturn in tourism plan figures (after the fall of Soviet Communism).
This skyscraper provides luxury housing for scientists and engineers.
Many high-rise apartment buildings in Pyöngyang.
Cars too, including some Mercedes.
And taxis of course.
A cruise ship for parties and weddings on the Taedong River.
Definitely the most relaxed capital city in the world.
Under the Juche (national autarky) philosophy, the population of North Korea grew from 10.029.715 inhabitants in 1955 to 25.223.526 in 2016, contradicting Western propaganda of severe economic problems or even hunger catastrophes.
The supermarkets in the capital are well-stocked (not only in the hotels).
There is a special internet and mobile phone network for foreigners, separate from the local "intranet". Built by Egyptian-Swiss Sami Sawiris and his company Orascom.
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Here is what the Huffington Post author F. Megaloudi wrote in 2014: (source)
I lived in Pyongyang for almost two years, from June 2012 to March 2014. I arrived in the country together with my four year old son without knowing what to expect. Before I went to North Korea, I read numerous analysis and watched endless documentaries on the country that left me with the impression that I was about to enter a world of brainwashed "robots". But what I experienced during those two years in DPRK, had nothing to do with the standard stereotypes. ...
In downtown Pyongyang, department stores were filled with goods from all over the world: Swiss chocolates, packets of Doritos, Coca-Cola and Italian wine. Clothes from the Spanish Zara stores, Chanel makeup kits and perfumes, watches and jewelry stock the shelves. Chinese middlemen, who serve as brokers between North Korean trading firms and China-based companies, secure a continuous flow of goods and equipment into the country.
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Getting a haircut, rocket style
It is not forbidden to ask for the great leader's haircut.
A good sense of humour exists among North Koreans.
Surfing in the DPRK: Music Video
At The Koryo, the best hotel in Pyöngyang
Kaesong, the former capital and oldest (and only undestroyed) city
Our guesthouse in Kaseong, the Tanamsan Hotel. Currently unheated. Because of the US embargo against oil & gas, not only civilians freeze terribly in the cold winter (-20 °C), but also tourists. Hmm, I wonder why North Korea don't master the civilian use of nuclear energy ...
The better-known Folk Hotel in Kaesong was even closed completely. Cold War.
(Note: one of the many, many solar energy panels in North Korea at the top left)
DMZ: the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom
I had been to the blue UN barracks on the Panmunyom borderline some 15 years before, from the Southern side. It was actually more friendly and informative to visit from the Northern side than from the Southern side. The Southerners do not allow smiling, laughing, hand waving, jeans, sneakers, or free walking (we had to goose step instead !). A special badge is compulsory in the South, and one must sign not to flee to the North. (*)
List of Western refugees to North Korea (Wikipedia) via the DMZ and the largely unknown British documentary about them: "Crossing the line".
Refugee Joseph T. White from Missouri denounced the United States' "corruptness, criminality, immorality, weakness, and hedonism," affirming he had defected to demonstrate how "unjustifiable it is for the U.S. to send troops to South Korea" (Wikipedi
