Kiev - photos

Chernobyl - photos

Kiev / Cherobyl - boy

After some forgettable food on the planes and an eight hour wait in the dump that is Moscow airport we headed straight for the typical Ukrainian style cafeteria restaurant where we had our first mostly non-fried meal in a long time: wonderful mayonnaise-laden salads, Borsch (soup) and cherry Varenyky (filled dumplings). We also sampled excellent food in one of the many typical Ukrainian style themed restaurants. This place, decorated in 1900s style Kiev complete with fish-holding cherubs, wax people staring through wooden windows, rustic scenes and saddle-like bar seats, was actually one of the more toned down themed restaurants in Kiev.

At the Lavra (Ukrainian Orthodox catacombs) and the Ukrainian Orthodox churches we were treated to a show of religious devotion that transcended reason every bit as much as the Buddhists in the Jokhang or the Hindus in Varanasi. In these churches, such is the wanton ache for those portrayed in paintings and such is the effect of other assorted religious objects that the glass covering such holy matter and holy paintings is plastered with kisses. In the Lavra we saw queues of devotees constantly slobbering over glass coffins containing mummified bodies while the empty rooms still showed evidence in the form of puckered up shapes of sweat residue clearly visible against the light. Here I imagine communicable diseases thrive. Maybe that’s why these pilgrims supplement their lip-work duties with some furious crossing of themselves at every corner; to ward of the evil microbes.

The compound where the Lavra was situated wasn’t all uninspiring mindless practice however. One room showed an amazing exhibition of micro-miniature sculptures of truly head-scratching proportions. A golden chess set on a pin head; portraits notched into half a poppy seed; camels, pyramids and palm trees all excellently carved and resting comfortably within the eye of a needle; a rose placed within a hollowed-out strand of hair. To dissect and arrange with this kind of precision seemed like such an unbelievable feat that at one point I wondered if the microscopes were fake; set up to give the illusion that we were looking at tiny objects.

Our day trip to Chernobyl got off to a uncertain start when we had to hand over a couple of hundred dollars to some dodgy guy standing outside a hotel. I revised my first impressions when I found out he was our guide but reverted back by the end of his day’s lacklustre, indifferent and sometimes dubious dialogue; apparently there were never any mutated plants in the area - better tell that to the Chernobyl museum so they can take their fraudulent specimens away. There were moments when a hint of a spark of enthusiasm were present; like I’m sure years ago when he began these tours, but it didn’t hang around.

We did however see some cool stuff. We watched our Geiger counters rise from 14 μR/h (micro-roentgen per hour) to well over 500 μR/h as we approached reactor number four and its decaying concrete shell, just a stone’s throw away. Complex plans are afoot apparently to build a large concrete arch on rollers that will slide over the toxic edifice; no foundations can be dug since highly radioactive earth sometimes lies beneath like super contaminated underground land-mines that wound in slow motion (our guy did give us some interesting facts). Until that happens, ionizing radiation will continue to jet out of the many cracks. And surprisingly three thousand people still work next door in the other reactors, keeping the now useless and unwanted uranium rods cool enough so they don’t blow. Russia’s legacy Ukraine’s inheritance.

The ghost town of Pripyat was less exciting than anticipated. After 24 years a forest has grown in its place; it barely resembles a town any more but a place where separate vandalised decrepit buildings live. There was some interesting looking soviet textbooks in the old school, some still on their shelves though the shelves themselves were toppled long ago. And of course it was fun scanning for gamma and beta hot spots around the town. You had to be there I guess.

The tour was nicely (I thought) rounded off with a remarkably genuinely dire soviet style meal. Soviet meals are new to me and although I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy I nevertheless enjoyed the experience of eating such authentically bad food for the first and last time.

Kiev / Cherobyl - girl

After a painless flight to Moscow, an extremely long and uncomfortable wait in the disgusting Moscow airport and a short flight, we finally arrived in Kiev a full day after we left Beijing. Our welcome to the country was both amusing and annoying: we had booked a cab to meet us at the airport but when we got through customs there was no one holding a sign with our name on it. After peering at everyone holding a sign at least three times we rang the hotel to find out what had happened. It transpired that the cab driver had come to the airport, not found us, and left. I was gobsmacked. It's an airport. Surely it's obvious that you check the arrivals board, see that the plane is delayed and wait????? No. Apparently not. And then our hostel appeared to be more like someone's house than a hostel. It was weird. I'm pretty sure that two dodgy Ukrainians just opened their house to foreigners because they didn't feel like working. But whatever, it was clean and they were fairly friendly.

 

I love Ukraine. I have liked it a lot for a long time and have always enjoyed my visits with WJR. However, Kiev is not representative of Ukraine in any way. It's much richer and happier and definitely a more fun place to be than Dnepropetrovsk or Zaparozhye. It probably rivals Odessa for fun factor. We didn't do much while we were waiting for our Chernobyl tour. We ate well (running theme, really), wondered around the city, took a very long walk to a park in the boiling sun, to look at a communist museum (who needs English translations on signs?) and some remaining communist statues. We both much preferred the Ukrainian statues to North Korean. Despite being more 'rough and ready' they actually looked like they were more skilfully designed. It was interesting to watch people climbing over statues that had presumably been created to instil fear and awe in them just twenty years ago.

 

We also visited the caves we didn't get a chance to see last time we were in Kiev. They're under the Lavra, which is a huge monastery complex, and are visited by millions of pilgrims who want to see dudes under flags in glass boxes. Interesting. Even better than the caves was the miniature museum. Some guy had devoted his life to carving teeny weeny sculptures. They're so small they're all behind extremely powerful microscopes. Some examples of his work are: 'long live peace' engraved on a human hair; a golden chess set sitting on a pin head and a portrait etched into half a poppy seed. Wow. Incredible.

 

And then Chernobyl day came. It was ok. I'm not sure it was much more than that for me. We saw the reactor, we wandered around a village that was evacuated after the explosion and we ate a truly disgusting meal. We couldn't really hear the commentary as the guide wouldn't/couldn't turn up his microphone so I didn't learn as much as I might have liked to.

 

 That's it. We're done. We're home now. The eagles have landed. Five months of travelling over. Time to rejoin the real world. 

Photos - Beijing

Beijing - boy

This clean and grand city was our jump off point for North Korea and our homeward flight so the place feels very familiar now. We were lucky enough to find an extremely friendly hostel in an attractive hutong (quarter with old style buildings) so it feels like home from home. And like home, each time we arrived, we launched into Starbucks (for me) and sushi (for both of us). We've also had out fair share of extremely tasty Beijing duck restaurants where I actually acquired a liking of crispy duck skin dipped in sugar, not one of my most healthy acquisitions.

 

The sights such as the Forbidden City and the Heavenly Park, grand though the names and histories are, were unfortunately a mild distraction from the day to day affair of finding food and curios and the legendary Shaolin Kung Fu show turned out to be some mediocre martial arts jumping around mixed with average love dances to fill the gaps.

 

The Great Wall did impress and we had a good couple of hours rambling on an unfrequented and crumbling section of wall. The mausoleum in Tian'namen square was an interesting sight containing Mao's soviet-flag-covered body looking especially orange and plastic that day and sporting a fantastic array of kitschy paraphernalia while stocks last - it's what he would have wanted and no less than he deserves.

Beijing - girl

We were in Beijing on three separate occasions: pre and post North Korea and post Xianjing. It began to feel like home in a weird way. We stayed in an extremely friendly hostel not far from Tiananmen Square.

 

Coming back to Beijing from North Korea was extremely interesting. The sheer number of people, the eight lane highways full of cars, good food and freedom (pretty much). At this point I was certain that the most important things to do in Beijing were: eat sushi and eat McDonald's. We managed both. Hurrah for capitalism, globalism and freedom.

 

I remember quite liking Beijing as a city but not being enthralled by its tourist attractions. This view held firm. A trip to the Forbidden City was precisely as I remembered it: dull. The Bell Tower afforded no great views, the Heavenly peace place was dull but with far more tourists than I remember. They've chucked a couple of massive tv screens in the middle of Tiananmen, which I think ruins the effect as the square no longer feels so mind-bogglingly enormous. Surely the point of communism is to make people feel small and insignificant, not let them watch big tv?

 

A trip to the Great Wall was fine. We took a tour that promised a 10km hike along a secret section of wall. Well, there was no one else there and it was long and hot but the number of old or fat people in our group who thought they would hike 10km up and down a steep section of wall in very hot weather was quite surprising. Of a group of 20 of us, four walked at normal speed (two others, C and me), around eight more were a little slow and the rest I thought were fairly selfish for insisting on walking the entire length when there were plenty of opportunities for them to turn back. We took two and a half hours to complete the walk. The slowest took five hours so we had to sit in the sun and wait for them. Of course I'm pleased they achieved something but I don't think it's fair to make complete strangers wait around, especially when we'd been promised we'd be back in Beijing  by 6pm at the very latest. We weren't, at all.

 

Last time I paid a visit to Mr. Mao's plasticised body I had the hangover from hell and had to restrain myself from vomiting in the corner. This time I was a little more restrained. The overpowering smell of formaldehyde has gone but Mao still looks as plastic. The Chinese still weirdly lay flowers to the man who orchestrated the murder of their millions, the foreign tourists still look on in a mixture of horror and amusement and the queue still moves at rapid pace. The only change is that now, after visiting the body of the man who personifies Chinese communism more than any other, one is ushered into a shop selling all sorts of tourist tat with his face on it. Brilliant. I think the zebras have done a perfect job here. There is no better way to destroy Mao's ravings than this, except that people don't seem to notice the irony as they snap up key-rings and lamps with Mao's face charmingly engraved upon them.

 

C has been on a quest to find the perfect kung-fu performance since we arrived in Asia. We did not find it in Beijing. What we did find was an over-priced tourist demonstration of some fairly weak kung-fu where people didn't even manage to jump around in time. Extremely disappointing.

 

We did manage to sate C's need for duck in small pancakes whilst in Beijing and he even discovered a new found love for duck fat covered in sugar. It's fine, I don't need a husband with teeth. And, to keep our tradition going, I took C. to a seafood buffet in Raffles. Pretty good but not excellent. We enjoyed trying new seafood wonders such as sea snail and giant clams before chowing down on Boston lobster.

 

We also used our time to see a few movies (Prince of Persia [officially the worst movie ever], Toy Story 3 and Robin Hood), visit a tailor and eat a lot of sushi.

 

I've definitely enjoyed China more than I did last time: I think that's partly down to China and partly to me. I'm much happier than I was eight years ago and haven't been dealing with the shock of a teaching placement going horribly wrong this time. I was happy to meet a girl whose recent placement ended in much the same way as ours did in 2002 - the head teacher going crazy and accusing the western staff of all sorts of nonsense. It reaffirmed my hope that we really weren't to blame. I swore I'd never return to China, was persuaded into doing so by C and truly, I don't regret it. I'm glad China and I have been reconciled. It'll never be my favourite place, nor will it top my list of countries to which I'd like to return but we're more at peace. The constant spitting, pushing, shoving and shouting are hard to deal with for me, possibly harder than for others but I can just about cope with them now. Our effort at learning some basic Mandarin before leaving in February did come in handy although not as much as we'd have hoped. We certainly didn't get to a level where we could do any more than basic exchanges with taxi drivers and waiters so we remain excluded from the 'real China'. Perhaps one day...

Photos - Xi'an

Xi'an - boy

 At the mosque in Xi'an - which looked like every other Taoist temple, Confucian temple and most Buddhist temples - we were given a tourist questionnaire that asked, among other silly questions, why we were in Xi'an. Just as Hiroshima draws people interested in cities destroyed by atomic bombs Xi'an attracts people for its clay statues built a couple of thousand years ago by some megalomaniac paranoid military genius.

 

And they are impressive, for their quantity, quality and age. Nothing else comes close. The Xi'an museum shows terracotta figurines from much later periods and they pale in comparison. It's a shame the business surrounding the terracotta warriors is in such a state. Our introduction to the site was some very pushy guides that tried every tactic in the book including emotional blackmail to try and sell their services. We wasted our money on a truly atrocious audio guide which produced so many meaningless measurements I thought we were back in North Korea. Maybe it was comeuppance for not hiring a human guide or maybe we were rescued from even worse exposure to regurgitated figures and dull facts.

 

The 360 degree theatre made up of multiple screens should have told the story of the man behind the warriors, Qin Shi Huang, but we didn't hang around because the pointless battle sequences in the documentary never seemed to end. Though it would probably have held our interest had more than one screen been working.

 

Our most pleasant experience was on a tandem cycling around Xi'an on its city walls, parts of which were completely empty. As soon as we were on the ramparts the temperature seemed to cool and the city noise die away. It made us feel even calmer to occasionally glance down at the hectic humid city life as other people sweated about their business.

Xi'an - girl

 I don't remember Xi'an being as developed as it is now. It feels like a huge, sprawling mess of a city and I didn't warm to the place at all. It finally struck me here that I'm fed up with Chinese food. I didn't think the day would ever come but it has: there's simply not the variety or quality to keep me interested. Sure, duck is fab and everyone with sense loves sweet and sour pork, but does everything have to be so oily? Even the veg are covered in oil. And nothing's ever cold. In 40 degree heat I do not want hot, oily veg for lunch. So, we ended up having lunch in Starbucks every day bar one in Xi'an. I'm not proud of this as I've always been fairly anti-Starbucks but you know what? They actually do pretty good sandwiches, and they have air-con!

 

The air-con was vital given that we were in Xi'an during a three day heat wave. The city recorded its hottest day ever on one day and we could tell. It felt like walking through warm bath water, much like Turpan and Urumqi did every day actually. We were moving from cold drink to ice-cream to cold drink pretty much every minute of every day.

 

The Terra-Cotta warriors are exactly as I remember them although the dude who discovered them is dead now. I did not remember the appalling surround screen video at the site though, and nor did I remember the museum being quite so dull. However, the warriors themselves didn't disappoint, which was the main thing. We thought we'd hire audio-guides in order to ward off the pushy human guides who busied themselves by emotionally blackmailing tourists in to hiring them. The typical conversation would go like this:

 

Guide: Do you need a guide? 100 Yuan.

Us: No, thank you.

Guide: Listen to me. Without a guide you will understand nothing. It's all in Chinese and you will understand nothing. You'd better hire me. 80 Yuan.

Us: No, thank you.

Guide: Listen to me. It is very complicated and you will understand nothing. 50 Yuan, last price.

Us: No, really, we don't want a guide, thank you.

Guide: Look, if you don't hire me I'm going to lose my job (tear in eye)

 

C. was great with this and calmly asked if the guide thought emotional blackmail was a good idea and if it was really likely to work on tourists. The guides weren't wrong, there was a lot of information that was only in Chinese but given what the audio-guide told us, I don't think we missed out on much. Of course, some people may like to know how deep, how high, how wide, how many bricks etc. etc. I'm not sure most of them are allowed out of North Korea, though.

 

We also visited the Xi'an museum, which was dull, dull, dull. It was free but we had to wait in an hour long queue to write our passport numbers down before they would let us in. Guess who doesn't know her passport number? Guess what, she made it up. Bad girl.

 

The most fun thing we did in Xi'an was hire a tandem bicycle and cycle around the city wall. What fun. Neither of us had ever ridden a tandem bike before and we definitely enjoyed the experience even if one of us did want to ride up or down every steep bit of path and the other didn't (not because she's a wuss but because sitting on the back seat her feet would hit the ground every time). I do feel a bit bad though, when I was choosing my latest drink, a country mouse came up to me and bashed me on the back. When I turned round she gestured that she wanted to take my photo with her kid/grandkid. I was hot, sweaty, dirty and tired and had just been hit. I refused. I do feel bad and I know she meant no harm by bashing me, but really? Did she think bashing me was the way to get me to do something for her? If I had been nicer I might have done it but I didn't really want a picture taken looking like that anyway. Can't be nice all the time, I guess.

 

And then it was time to go to the train station, a heaving mass of humanity in a station that only has enough space for about a fifth of the people pushing and shoving to catch the right train.  

Turpan - photos

 

Turpan - boy

The real reason for coming to Xinjiang. This was the experience I was expecting; sandy landscape, dry heat, blue skies and the feeling you're not in China. Blue skies, for a start, will make you feel you're not in China and it wasn't the first time either. Lhasa also had blue skies so it seems these "autonomous" regions don't have it so bad after all.

 

Central Government wants to lure Chinese tourists to this province and has started by building expensive ticketing machines and charging a high entry fee to cover the costs. If they were able to cover up the mountains and charge for taking the cover off, they would do it - this is not far fetched when you consider what they've actually done: for example, tour buses for the 'flaming mountains' attraction must enter a sunken parking lot surrounded by two metre high boards obscuring the scenery; the tourists must then pay to exit this enclosed space through a turnstile to see the same scenery that was already visible before entering the parking lot. Needless to say none of us wanted to pay (would anyone?), so we drove out of the parking lot and stopped on the desert road a few metres ahead and looked for free.

 

Apart from the forced attractions there were a few genuinely interesting ones such as an Afghan style mosque and Tuyok, a traditional Uyghur town. The two thousand (or so) year old town that is now more or less a melted mud city with barely recognisable streets and buildings was less appealing as was their underground irrigation attraction - maybe fibre glass models of people building tunnels just don't do it for me.

 

We tried to round the day off with some interesting Urghur food, however the two dishes that were recommended, spaghetti in oil and spaghetti cut into small pieces in oil, didn't really satisfy so we ended up eating more Chinese; just as oily but more interesting. Since Turpan is famous for its grapes we thought we'd sample the wine, but unfortunately it turned out to be as drinkable as the Urghur food was interesting. It's probably a real art to make food this tasteless and on the plane they brought it to a new level; or maybe we were put off by the guy on our left who was determined to fill three sick bags full of spit.

Turpan - girl

Turpan is the second lowest land point in the world (after the Dead Sea) and the hottest part of China. It has reached 49.6 degrees celcius here before although I don't think it was over 41 degrees while we were there. Turpan is in the far north west of China, near Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a small, dusty city on the edge of the vast Chinese empire. I'd always fancied going to the region and a nod in the right direction from another C. (met in North Korea) helped us make the 12 hour train journey, three hour flight and three hour bus from Beijing to Turpan.

 

So, we spent three days getting there, was it worth it? Yes. Absolutely. I found it fascinating, weird, wonderful and very, very different from anything else we've seen in China. The city itself ain't any great shakes but the environs are. On our first day in Turpan we walked three or four km in the aching heat down small roads lined with old mud houses. People were sitting outside chatting, kids were playing, women were washing clothes in the stream, men lazed on the outdoor beds and watermelons and traditional breads were sold on the side of the road. Truly a world away from Beijing or Shanghai. I wouldn't be surprised if these people never make it as far as Beijing. At the end of our walk was the (Afghan style) Emin mosque and minaret I so wanted to see. It didn't disappoint, made of mud brick in the C17/18, the minaret towered into the deep blue sky in the dizzying heat. We escaped into the cool shade of the mosque below and just sat, enveloped in the silence and cool air. Sadly we couldn't climb on to the roof as part of it has collapsed but a walk around the building was enough before we headed back into town.

 

There are no other sites within the city itself, one must take a day long tour to see the other reasons to visit the area: Flaming Mountains (that didn't appear to be flaming to us), Tuyoq, a fascinating mud village that's still inhabited. I think there's some grave or other that is almost as holy to Muslims as Mecca. If they visit this grave seven times it's the same as Hajj, or something. We didn't much care about that but the village itself is pretty interesting (even if they won't let you use a perfectly valid student card to get in).

 

Other sites we visited included the Jiahoe ruins, apparently one of the world's biggest and best preserved ancient cities. Quite frankly it wasn't up to much. It felt like it was about one million degrees and we were looking at dried mud. Maybe I'm a heathen but maybe I don't care! We also saw some grottos with rock paintings that were stolen by some German years ago - not exactly worth the entrance fee. The last destination was an extremely touristy karez - a clever underground watering system that made Turpan into the oasis it is. Water is transported from the mountains by a series of wells dropping into an underground stream. We paid a lot of money to follow the stream a short way and then to walk back (a longer way round) via millions of tourist stalls all selling the same goods.

 

We stayed in Turpan for longer than necessary, partly to relax and partly to write up the damned North Korea blogs and I'm glad we did. There may not have been much to do or anywhere to eat (local food isn't up to much) but the small bazaar was cute and we felt like we'd really escaped the tourist routes, in fact, I got pretty upset every time I even saw another tourist in 'our town'. Turpan showed us the China we knew still existed but hadn't really seen; poor, slow and diverse, truly a million miles from Beijing. 

 

Photos - Urumqi

Urumqi - boy

On a quest for something a little more exotic than walled cities and quaint towns crammed full of tourists we decided to spend valuable days travelling to Xinjiang province, which borders Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and a number of other stans. Urumqi is a convenient point of arrival and departure but little else. It looks like any other large Chinese city with half of the multi-ethnic population giving it a Middle Eastern tint. Scratching just below the surface gave us a slightly more Middle Eastern feel with an Uzbek restaurant serving mediocre dishes, an outdoor market giving us an oily DIY fry up of chillied intestines and the Uyghur oven-fresh flat naan bread that magically turns to stale biscuit when cold. We didn't do more scratching than that.

 

The army was out in force on the anniversary of the riots marching purposefully up and down the street, but I wonder how these young distracted faces would fare if anything serious were to break out on their watch.

 

The Urumqi museum seems to have disappeared and been replaced by a virtually empty building and a guard whose sole duties appear to be shouting at tourists. Xinjiang museum on the other hand was there and was surprisingly interesting, especially the display of mummified bodies and, as with most of China's museums, plaque after plaque describing how grateful its minorities are to central government.

 

Urumqi - girl

Urumqi is further from the sea than any other city in the world. I think that's a pretty cool fact. There's not much to do when you can't go to the beach, though. We enjoyed a meal in the night market (although I'm never convinced by paying to cook my own food, unlike C), ate some good local bread that has an amazing ability to go stale minutes after leaving the oven and walked around, a lot.

 

The museum here is almost excellent and is probably the best I've seen in China. I didn't learn huge amounts but I enjoyed seeing the exhibits and reading some of the entertaining propaganda about how happy people in Xianjing are to have the Chinese as their overlords. The museum also has three mummies and who doesn't like mummies?

 

It took a while to work out why we were seeing so many armed police and soldiers on the streets but we eventually got there: it was one year since the riots a few days after we left and Big Brother wanted to make sure there was no repeat. We saw nothing interesting save from the soldiers themselves and never felt any tension while there. Most of the soldiers looked like kids with guns. I don't much like kids with guns.

 

Urumqi, like Turpan was interesting because it's the edge of a vast empire. In Urumqi one sees people of many ethnicities: Chinese, Uyghur, Tajik, Uzbek, Russian, Mongolian, Tibetan... the list goes on and so does the list of languages you can hear on the street. I enjoyed seeing Russian, Chinese and Uyghur together on shop walls.

 

Upon arrival we headed straight out to the night market, a two hour walk from our hotel through the streets of Urumqi. Last time I was in China many people asked if I was from this region of China and although it still makes me laugh it now makes a bit more sense. The Ughiuirs (sp) can look as European as we do and many don't look dissimilar to me. 

 

North Korea - photos

North Korea - photos

North Korea - boy

It's very hard not to have preconceptions of North Korea given the recent incidents, rhetoric, popular film and recent articles and books about the place and just in case we didn't have any, our preamble in Beijing and first day chatting to people who work there set us up with the following: they are fiercely proud of their country; believe they are misunderstood and persecuted; wholeheartedly believe their lot would be much worse without Great and Dear Leader to guide them; are happy with the sacrifices they are making in order to pursue their ideological goals; know full well that the west is richer and may have an easier life but believe it comes at a moral price.

The English acronyms for the two Koreas are worth a mention here: ROK (Republic of Korea) implies South Korea only while DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) implies both North and South to North Koreans. In fact, when they describe "their" country's geography they will include the cities, lakes and hills of South Korea as if there's no divide. The designation North Korea is not liked by the North because it implies a division and we were asked to use "DPRK" (despite the implication) to not cause offence.

This isn't the only thing that causes offence. For example, we were asked to be careful when folding a newspaper with Great or Dear Leaders' faces on it and to watch what objects rest against either face lest we upset anyone. On one occasion, we were told, a letter of apology had to be written to sooth the nerves of some poor North Korean who witnessed the unholy sight of laundry items resting atop Great or Dear Leader's face. Kim Il-sung knows what collective nervous breakdown would ensue if Jyllands-Posten were ever to publish cartoons in North Korea.

Only a short time after leaving Beijing our flight had left harmonious airspace and entered "liberated" airspace where we enjoyed the very entertaining in-flight magazines. The papers regaled us with many parables involving Great Leader Kim Il-sung; they waxed about factory visits by Dear Leader Kim Jung Il where he acquainted himself with the factory's inner workings, gave advice and praised the workers and their output using revolutionary similes; and we learned how the dastardly US imperialist aggressors and South Korean puppets stifle reunification at every turn.

After waiting an extremely long time for customs to examine and seal the group's mobile phones we were greeted by what would be the voices of North Korea over the next week. We had three guides, one more than normal, for our very small group of six plus one American. They would chaperone us everywhere and ensure we didn't stray from our designated path, or spontaneously interact with other North Koreans, or photograph anything they didn't like. For example, our American contingent was asked to remove a photo of a propaganda painting showing Dear Leader being worshipped by the masses. Who knows what would happen if that picture were to get into the wrong hands.

We arrived just before North Korea played their first match of the World Cup. I was half expecting the losses of the North Korean team to be withheld since they don't show the matches live but our guides seemed pleased with the narrow loss against Brazil. The government must also have been pleased because we found out later that they aired their next match against Portugal live for the first time and lost 7-0. I would be surprised if they do that again. I asked if we could see a match with the locals outside the confines of our hotel since the tour was called 'North Korea World Cup Tour' but we weren't allowed.

I found it unsettling to learn that no guide was ever allowed to be with us on their own although (almost) private chats were possible on the bus. If they harboured any doubts or opinions that conflicted with Dear or Great Leader they didn't show it. If they believed their news or version of history was anything but the whole truth and nothing but, they didn't express it. We had many varied discussions on politics and other potentially sensitive topics in which they participated with gusto though I was surprised to learn later that one of our guides felt extremely agitated during these discussions. On occasion a fundamental contradiction would rear up and their answer would disappointingly, but not surprisingly, revert to the party line, or their perfect English would suddenly be found wanting or they would simply not answer the question.

Our views frequently boiled down to different facts. This was further reduced to the question of where the information came from and this ultimately ended in their surrealistic suggestions and outright statements of complete faith in their press and leaders. Especially their Great (departed) Leader, their president and father, whose word is gospel. This is not an exaggeration, it's a belief as unswerving (and as uncompromising) as that of any religious zealot. They believe success and prosperity are just around the corner, that the Juche idea (self reliance) and extreme socialism will win out in the end and failures in progress can be blamed on the US or US proxy organisations such as the UN. These were the common themes repeated ad nauseum throughout our tour.

Do most North Koreans think like our guides? Given the absolute control over information and praise heaped on both leaders at all times it's wouldn't be outrageous to assume that most others think along similar lines and with similar vigour. All North Koreans join the Kim Il-sung league at eight and receive a badge with Great Leader's face on it at fourteen, which they will wear for the rest of their lives. There's plenty of information to go with these symbolic moments and everyone is subject to this to a greater or lesser degree. At its most benign, it takes the form of large printed slogans such as "long live Kim Il-sung!" adorning hills and bridges. At its most invasive, it involves loudspeakers sounding rousing music and commands to "do your duty" from 8am till 10 at night. A typically well read North Korean will not have had access to any news or history books outside of North Korea so what chance do they have to acquire a different view? And I've no doubt that those who like being told what to think can live quite happily within the parameters set by their "Fathers".

Could our guides have feigned a belief in their history, news and infallibility of their leaders? The selection process for North Korean guides would be surely be found wanting if it were ever to let a few 'unbelievers' slip in. Any totalitarian paranoid state worth their salt must be world leaders in rooting-out-dissenters engineering if they are to concentrate on the more important matters like money laundering or importing crates of Cognac for its elite. Many people do crave information from outside North Korea and who knows what this leads to? However, voicing contrary views on contentious issues is loss of privilege at best and life at worst so I'm guessing that all opinions we heard were subject to rigorous self-censorship. Though I can never know, I'm of the mind that most North Koreans really do believe. Especially our guides; regular viewings of the kinds of one-sided documentaries and presentations that we saw all week must surely make one an enthusiastic devotee. And anyway, more than half the world lives with far stranger contradictions so it wouldn't be surprising to find that North Koreans can do it too, in spades. I feel though for the inquisitive minority that doesn't think this way; they must lead a miserable existence.

The North Korean style of news and documentary are something to behold, from the twee Pâthé news style of the fifties to the 'playground name calling' style or lack thereof. "This is the Korean way" we were repeatedly told when I asked if it were possible to report the news and history using neutral language. Within the propaganda facts exist that substantiate much of what the North Koreans are saying and sadly it's lost amid the sycophancy and hysteria. Most of our "museum" guides used simplistic and provocative rhetoric too, but that is not too surprising since many (if not all) books and articles are written in the same vein. Without competing viewpoints exaggerations and outright lies reign free. For example, they say things like "when Dear Leader was eight years old he offered invaluable strategic advice to the army ... Dear Leader got four holes in one the first time he played golf ... etc ...etc".  For us this is comedy and an insult to our intelligence. Do the guides in the museums realise this? Our permanent guides, whose job it is to talk to Westerners, probably do since they avoid these kinds of fables.

The Korean War, according to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, is an uncomplicated story of good versus bad, heroes versus aggressors. Like the other museums in North Korea it has the aspect of a shrine with many statues and paintings of Great Leader and his exploits. An unprepared and defensive North repelled the US and South Korean army so effectively that within three days they reached Seoul. China and Russia are given scant mention but when asked the guide did admit that they offered "some assistance". The museum also has many letters on display written by US and UN officials with text highlighted that proves various points, but other letters are woefully taken out of context and easily spotted by anyone that can read the non-highlighted text. The documentary they showed us described how the US started the war in Korea in order to sell weapons left over from WWII. To illustrate this point, images of the US depression in the thirties were juxtaposed with weapons being shipped by the American GIs in the late forties.

The exhibits, information and documentaries at the other militaristic tourist attractions, such as the visit to the DMZ or the captured vessel USS Pueblo, were presented in the same vein and again, unashamedly one-sided and economical with the truth. The same rhetoric couldn't even be avoided at the ancient sites where bile was directed at Japanese imperialists for destroying much of their heritage, though it was slightly more tempered, obviously saving their spleen for the new enemy in town.

They do however use neutral tones when they give quantitative information, which they do a lot; dimensions, cubic capacity, people capacity, dates and any incidental numerical information that happen to coincide with Great or Dear Leaders' birthday and hat-size. I think they need to regurgitate so many innocuous measurements because it's the only non-confrontational information they have, and offers brief respite from sounding like they're constantly on high-alert.

Interestingly, our permanent guides toned down the "museum" guides' rhetoric when translating and only sometimes succumbed to it themselves. Only on one occasion was the demeanour visibly rattled; on our visit to the DMZ. One normally cool guide made the not so cool suggestion that a response to the South Koreans sending propaganda via large TVs was to kill them. Loud TVs are an act of war apparently. I agree that the noise can't be pleasant for the North Korean farmers that have to work in the DMZ (they farm there because many acres of arable land is now used by an empty eight lane highway) but there is surely a better proposal. Nope, "the South Korean leaders are mad dogs and what do you do with mad dogs?" I know that we have a loud minority in the West that uses similar logic but here in North Korea I don't believe you ever hear minority opinions, least of all by those few individuals chosen to speak to tourists. To settle the point our guide brought out a familiar axiom that we heard on more than one occasion; "war to war, action to action" [Kim 3 verse 4].

Quotes from the good books of Juche are everywhere and our guides had a few favourites. One was "seeing is believing" whenever we were shown something that they felt sure substantiated their version of events. However, one is never allowed to scratch below the surface. The structure of a tightly controlled tour doesn't allow any reasonable time to be spent in any museum examining the evidence they present. There may well be valid points that we haven't considered but we'll never know if they keep groups controlled in this way. Ironically, in spoon feeding us information and controlling our travel, they are in many ways giving us a more authentic North Korean experience then they realise.

The museums showing North Korea's technical and cultural achievements fared little better than the militaristic ones in the way of objective information. Like the other museums they were more like shrines than places to learn. The technology section consisted of basic manufacturing equipment, like lathes and even cabinets containing standard video cables, placed around a large warehouse with the omnipresent grand sculpture of Great Leader looking outward in a meaningful pose. The "museum" of Juche ideology was simply a mass of Great and Dear Leaders' books behind glass with various photos of them in meaningful poses, plus an even grander statue of Great Leader looking significant. Sometimes I would think everything was normal because my brain somehow justified it as parody. Other times, I would have to confront the fact that devotion is what constitutes information here and try to get my head around it.

And there was more to come. At the Mansudae Grand Monument there is an enormous statue of Great Leader that dwarfs the others and we were asked to treat it as a holy place and bow before it while they presented flowers. As with any conduct that concerns Great Leader offence can easily be caused unintentionally such as taking a photo of only part of the statue instead of the entire thing. Our tour of megalomania reached almost fictional proportions when we visited the International Friendship Exhibition. This is two sets of subterranean halls and passages built into the mountainside that contain all the gifts Great and Dear Leader have ever received from ambassadors and institutions from outside. A motley collection of TVs, furniture, marble plaques, paintings, statuettes, stuffed animals, vehicles etc and even counters showing the quantity of gifts given and a map of the world with those countries who gave lit up accordingly. And then we entered the 'special room'. I was half expecting to see a bald man stroking a white cat saying "Hello Mr Bond, I've been expecting you" but instead we were treated to warm music and a woodland scene containing a life size wax model of Great Leader. We entered with fake reverence and disbelief, followed our guides cue to bow in silence and walked away with the single most bizarre experience I'll probably ever have in my life.

When you are shuttled from place to place and see only what they want you to see, it is easy to start thinking that the level of development is higher than it really is. However, reminders of what it's really like are everywhere: land used for farming in unusual places such as the airport. The quantity of people we saw in the city and countryside that were weeding or picking grass. The large grimy un-repaired blocks of flats; the fact that everything looks like it was built fifty years ago and never maintained; the famously unfinished Ryugyong hotel that sticks out like an aging concrete spaceship; the lack of running water in buildings that look like they should have better infrastructure; the eerie darkness of the Pyongyang cityscape at night; the general lack of cars and people for a city of three million; and the constantly changing itinerary because hotels and attractions were "not ready". Before coming to North Korea I thought they might have had a set number of places to visit that were always ready for tourists, but this cannot be the case.

Besides the obvious visual clues that we're not in Kansas now, there were subtler ones: their Arc de Triomphe is deliberately built a few metres higher than its namesake in Paris; it is considered noteworthy that when Dear Leader visited the Grand Study Hall he "advised" those responsible to replace fixed-height tables with individual adjustable ones; there were obvious contradictions such as telling us that the Grand Study Hall in Pyongyang is available to all North Koreans even though movement throughout North Korea is restricted; there were ridiculous claims such as inventing the spoon in the thirteenth century; the trains in the metro were from the old DDR (East Germany); they think revolving restaurants are cool; their newsreader speaks in fanatical tones when she talks about their leaders; they have ice-skating bears in the circus that wear leotards.

And then there's the not so subtle clues: large (excellently drawn) propaganda posters with slogans like "Have you done your work"; Great Leader's giant portraits outside buildings; gigantic statues of Great Leader in entrance halls; photos and paintings of Great and Dear Leaders adorning almost every wall. But, if there was one aspect I had to pick that demonstrates North Korea perfectly, it would be the following: their latest achievement is an eight lane highway to Nampo port, made top priority at the behest of their Dear Leader in 1999 and built by children (our guides say). Now, it's a crumbling highway serving a handful of cars. But! Traffic will come by 2012, our guides faithfully predict. The whole venture has shades of 'The Great Leap Forward', the cargo cults and Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams ("if you build it they will come") all rolled into one.

On the way over I read an article about how children in the North Korea are the happiest in the world. If happiness consists of singing, dancing, performing gymnastics or playing an instrument with a smile tattooed on your face then they might be on to something. The selection of children we saw were no doubt a privileged few and very good at what they do, but of course no way of asking them if their training schedules make them happy. We also visited an orphanage where the children also sang and danced for us while practising their own plastic smiles they would need later in life. The place was conspicuously overflowing with toys (taken from every other orphanage?) and I remember seeing an article in the Pyongyang Times which conspicuously showed mountains of food for the kids. I can just hear our guides now saying "you see what the orphans have in North Korea, seeing is believing".

The trouble with a restricted tour where you're constantly shadowed and prevented from leaving the hotel when the guides are not around is the constant speculation you have to do to make sense of it all. If North Korea wants to give the impression it doesn't control people then controlling a tour group isn't a good start. But it is the North Korean way. All books, news, guides and "museums" show similar subterfuge when they desperately show "evidence" for the North Korean perspective. When it's as unsophisticated as showing a picture of food to prove there is food, or a painting as evidence for a battle story then it almost becomes unreal. "Saying is believing" should be their slogan; would it hurt to admit this? I find it chilling that these blunt methods may actually work on the faithful.

There were many questions left unanswered, but they weren't for want of asking. I wondered whether our guides thought it bizarre that many of us distrust most of our media and think our leaders make mistakes. These kinds of questions were answered with a blank stare, though they could easily think that our media must be inferior if we have to question it. Harder to answer though was whether they would trust the press from countries obviously not aligned to the US. China is their economic friend but there doesn't appear to be any love lost on either side; some North Koreans even consider the Chinese to be boorish (nothing to do with queuing by any chance?) The closest to anything like respect was a brief conversation about the intelligent choices Deng Xiaoping made in the eighties regarding the Special Economic Zones. Is the implication that they want someone like him? Heresy, surely.

I posed a hypothetical question to one of our guides: "all of DPRKs weapons disappear; the world knows that DPRK is defenceless; what happens next?" The response was "the US would invade". Such is the fear the North Koreans have of the US. I tried to explain that the US does actually care about its standing in the world and that this action would be committing public relations suicide. When the next tour group comes along maybe they'll have a better answer, like the "US will convince the world that North Korea has WMD" but for the moment it's blank stares, party lines or expressions of fear.

They hate the UN too. And the hate is as deep as their reasons are shallow. Here's one of them: even though the UN Security Council rejected the US proposal to invade Iraq, they are still to be reviled for giving the US a platform with which to make the proposal in the first place. In short, the UN is to be reviled. There is nothing one can say, no evidence one can present, no argument one can use to make them change the opinion that their dear leaders have given them. This is pure unadulterated fundamentalism. I'm glad that they don't have their own version of the apocalypse though their version of the 'end of days' is rather heartening: reunification; when their Southerly kin accept the North's dead leader as president. There is no way of saying "Great Leader and his legacy are the biggest obstacles to reunification" without causing offence, so I kept my mouth shut. This is a sad state of affairs because South Koreans have also a penchant for reunification, only they don't obsess about it.

The country is fascinating and tragic. Without a peace treaty or reunification they seem to be stuck in limbo, caught in a fifties time-warp, like an obsessive parent who has lost an only child and keeps their bedroom exactly as it was. There is constant talk of reunification, if only the US and South Korean puppet leaders would let the Korean people go. Meanwhile the South has got on with things.

It's bizarre to be chaperoned like dignitaries around normally mundane places such as a local drinking hole, department store (and I use the term loosely), shop, metro station, study house, orphanage. These are not normally tourist attractions but they are here. They get to show us how good it can be compared to the rest of North Korea and we see how bad it is compared to the rest of the world. Real live communism in action as implemented by hereditary socialist despots. Yes, North Koreans are well practised in handling contradictions. It is a left wing country with an immigration policy any right wing fascist group would die for. It is a place where they preach the virtues of self-reliance while accepting large amounts of aid. A people that believe their "military first" government is the most peace loving in the world.

We don't need to handle the contradictions but we did need to talk among ourselves at the end of the day just to be sure we did hear correctly and weren't going crazy. A couple of nights our guides joined us, always in pairs, tongues were loosened with beer and we talked to them about some of the craziness that goes on in the outside world. Those were excellent nights where we had a lot of laughs and probably left our guides with the impression that Europe, the US and Australia are indeed scary places that they best keep away from.

To end on a positive note - and I'll try without any buts - the artwork on the propaganda posters that dot the city is superb. They've improved on the communist hammer and sickle symbol by adding a writing brush symbolising the intellectual (even if it's only symbolic). Their statues with the populace in various proletariat poses are second to none, the performance at the Children's Palace was exceptional, the beer was superb and we had a wonderful time in the park dancing with the locals. Also, their barrier across the river mouth is an impressive feat of engineering but have to disagree with the statement that it "could only be built by the brave heroic Koreans". Okay, one but.

Freedom of religion seems to be allowed in practice but I think their home grown holy binity (to rhyme with trinity) father and son team would have to be first in line for idolatry. And if the elite follow their leaders by example there must surely be a power structure that resembles an aristocracy. I know, more buts, but it's very hard to be positive for long because the cracks are so obvious to us.

They don't speculate openly about who may succeed Kim Jong-il and the mere suggestion that Dear Leader won't be around forever caused consternation with our guides when C asked. We do, and based on our news it will probably be Kim Jong-un with Dear Leader no doubt holding some immortal position when he dies. Once the propaganda starts about how wonderful Dear Leader's third son is they may speculate openly too.

North Korea - girl

I shall revert to diary style for this entry as everything was interesting enough for comment, nothing was dull and every moment brought a new level of crazy and/or horror. Even the country's name is interesting: we call it North Korea but to North Koreans this is extremely offensive as it recognises the split between North and South and is seen as an imperialist term, or something. DPRK is how North Koreans like us to refer to their country but since it technically means ALL of the Korean peninsula under their rule that is a little disturbing for those of us not supporting despotic nonsensical regimes. The North Korean leadership (and its brainwashed population) see their rule as ideally extending across the peninsula whatever the South's view and, when reality is so far from anyone's mind in the north, this is also considered fine. Therefore, despite calling it DPRK whilst there, and despite liking short acronyms more than long country names, I shall use North Korea in this entry.

 

Day 1:

The rousing music on the aeroplane helped prepare me mentally for what was in store in North Korea. The plane was an old Russian one and on it I certainly felt as if I was being transported back in time to the 1950s. The food was bad, I've already mentioned the music, everyone looked malnourished and their clothes were drab and cheap. I couldn't take my eyes off the lapel badges - turns out every adult in North Korea wears a lapel badge with a picture of Kim Jong Il or Kim Il Sung to demonstrate loyalty to their 'father'. Brilliant. I determined then and there that I was going to get me one of those puppies.

 

As we flew in to North Korean airspace there was a priceless tannoy announcement informing us that we were now entering liberated airspace thanks to Kim Jung Il, or some such nonsense. There were a few of these announcements but sadly the old equipment made them hard to hear properly. Thankfully, the rest of the trip afforded plenty of hilarity in the same vein.  We all very much enjoyed the papers and magazines handed out on the flight - who wouldn't want to read the exploits of Kim Jung Il? I quote from the 12/06/10 edition of the Pyongyang Times:

 

"After being briefed on the new project in front of the diagram of production processes, he [KJI] looked round several places for a long time to familiarise himself with the construction and production. Feasting his eyes over a large network of gasification processes... he then lavished praise on the workers in the complex and builders for displaying popular heroism and patriotic devotion in the construction of a great creation. He said that thanks to the indomitable revolutionary spirit of the workers who boast the proud tradition of carrying out any difficult task given by the WPK (Workers Party of Korea) at any cost the gasification project has been built splendidly to mass-produce Juche fertiliser. This is the revolutionary spirit of the heroic Korean workers who have glorified the sacred annals of the revolution with painstaking efforts and brilliant achievements, he added".

 

I could go on, and on, and on, with comedy brilliance from the paper but I think an anecdote from our briefing might work better: it's considered incredibly insulting to damage or deface anything with a picture of either the Dear or Great Leader on it, this goes so far as even leaving a pair of clean socks on top of a newspaper, we learned. One former visitor was forced to write a letter of apology to hotel staff after a cleaner found such socks on a paper in someone's room!

 

The view over North Korea as we approached Pyongyang was almost entirely rural and even on either side of the runway people were farming the land - in fact, every square cm of available land is cultivated in North Korea. Once the plane had landed we taxied for a good twenty minutes to reach the parking spot and terminal - no idea why since there were no other flights or traffic. And then we were standing in North Korea. Surreal. Our guides were waiting for us outside the airport - rather than the promised two we had three (turns out that's because we had one imperialist pig American in our group who required special guarding [note: he was lovely, it's not me who thinks he's an imperialist pig]). We spent some time chatting to the guides as the airport staff worked out what to do with the mobiles that had been brought into the country - feet in mouth a number of times for all of us within minutes - calling the country by its outside name, referring to things we shouldn't, we just couldn't help ourselves. Luckily we quickly learned what we could and couldn't say and as the week passed, the guides loosened up too.

 

On our way to the hotel we stopped at the North Korean version of the Arc de Triumph - proudly proclaimed to be just taller than the French one. Why not? If you're going to blatantly copy something, why not make it a little bigger? This was our first experience with the North Korean penchant for measuring: they like to measure and record EVERYTHING. I'm not sure why but I'm sure it gives people something to do! I wonder if they're surprised that tourists are rarely interested in how long/high/heavy something is. We were quickly to understand that we could take pictures without worry in Pyongyang unless told otherwise - and we did, hundreds, all of us.

 

Our hotel, the YanGakDo, was situated on an island in the middle of the river. We were safe from the North Koreans and they were safe from us! The hotel is only for foreigners and their minders and is just huge. I imagine its capacity is far beyond need, even when tour loads of gawking Chinese appear. The rooms were very nice - a normal 3 or 4 star hotel with fridge, international tv and full bathroom - far beyond the dreams of the average North Korean. After a pretty nice supper we headed to the revolving restaurant on the top of the tower for drinks (the North Koreans love these places and are extremely proud of the numerous revolving places in Pyongyang - we sort of mentioned that the whole revolving thing is a bit passé for the west these days but pretty much just oohed and aaahed on request every time we were shown another revolving building part).

 

Our hotel, big and plush as it was, had nothing on the giant space shuttle/ice cream cone they're currently rebuilding in the city centre. This thing was begun some fifteen years ago but work stopped before the turn of the century due to a lack of funds (I was impressed they mentioned this). Currently it is being completed in time for the expected 2012 glut of tourists - something about 2012 being the year their fortunes change. Despite the lovely glass facade, I'd be concerned about the concrete foundations that were open to the elements for ten years and are not being replaced.

 

There must have been a power cut that night as the city was almost entirely dark (we had a generator in the hotel, of course), something we haven't really experience in a big city since living in Africa. Once the bar staff made it clear they wanted us to leave we retired to the downstairs bar and carried on drinking, this time with our tour leader and the head of the tour company who is also a film director. We learned an awful lot from both of them but were sad to find that the guides would not be joining us for meals or evening drinks. The evening set the pace for a week of evening silliness. I definitely found that the drinking helped relieve the tensions and allowed the group an opportunity to relax, laugh at all we'd heard and return to our normality for a few hours.

 

Day 2:

We were greeted by rain on the our morning in Pyongyang so after a quick stop to buy flowers for the great leader (Kim Il Sung) we headed to the Study Hall - this is a monumental palace type building where lucky Pyongyang-ers can come and study anything they choose (?) for free. I would question the 'anything' 'choose' and 'free' but that's just me. It was admitted that there are no such opportunities for people living outside of the city either. The building itself was incredible but the facilities were sad and old: from books donated by the USA and old computers with no internet access to boom boxes for learning about music, everything cut a sorry picture. We were shown into one room that had a number of books on display in glass cases. I'm not sure what we were supposed to glean from the room - that people could read foreign books in any language (a Mongolian language primer in Russian, anyone?) perhaps? All I saw was a guide being oddly proud of a motley collection of pretty useless books we'd have chucked out years ago and all under lock and key. We were also allowed to touch some - the English ones were truly donated by the USA. I'm surprised that wasn't hidden from us. There is no internet in the country, just an intranet on to which the 'dear leader' allows information to be put. There is no access to the outside world for the vast majority of people. Our guides were interested in anything we could offer them; from repeating the BBC news coverage to giving them old Economists and old news on the IPod. Whether they were interested to know what nonsense we are fed or whether they want to know what's going on, we have no idea.

 

In a huge study hall (think exam schools in Oxford) we were told how one day, Kim Jung Il paid a visit to the building and wisely informed the managers that the desks were inappropriate since they didn't take into account the different heights of the users. So, heeding these wise words, they set about creating desks with weird fan-type contractions to adjust the height of the desks. Odd in so many ways: why does the leader get involved in such trivialities?; why does it matter? I'm pretty sure our libraries wouldn't take kindly to such interventions. We heard many such stories on our trip - the dear leader uttering some wise words, teaching his 'children' how to act - even when he was ten years old during the war he managed to advise fighter pilots on strategy; truly the guy must be a genius.

 

Next stop was a colossal statue of Kim Il Sung. Before arriving we had to get rid of any gum we might be chewing and smarten ourselves up for a visit to the great man. We walked, in a line, to the statue, paused to take in the enormity of the moment and our privilege, before laying flowers (just a few of us, not C or me), bowing and shuffling off. Needless to say we were all pretty amused by this event and did not feel particularly reverent. I definitely stifled a giggle or two and sort of nodded in the great man's direction. I don't bow or curtsey to our royal family, so I'm certainly not doing more than the absolute necessary here either. I have to say, though, that North Korean statues are incredibly beautiful - they're so lifelike. I'm very impressed. I believe the statue was originally covered in gold leaf. I was told Stalin or Mao or someone visited and pointed out that it didn't give a good impression of Communism so it was replaced with bronze. Move over Oscar Wilde!

 

A ride on the metro was a bit weird - where else in the world is that a tourist attraction? We went between two stations (not allowed to see the others for some reason). I would say that contrary to lots of people's thoughts, those we saw on the metro were not actors, it's definitely a train system that is used. I believe it's the deepest system in the world - I'm sure they told us how deep, long etc. but I don't remember. The stations we saw were incredibly beautiful. One benefit to a militarised country seems to be mosaics, everywhere! Clearly people don't have enough to do so they're put to work making roads or gynormous mosaics. The trains are from the GDR and it shows - they're dark, old and have German graffiti scratched into the windows. I'm sure North Koreans think we take pictures of the metro because we're impressed: I was a little uncomfortable giving this impression but since we wanted the pictures to show other people, I'll have to live with the fact that we give that impression.

 

A quick trip up the Juche Tower afforded new hilarities and insights into the mind of North Korea when we were shown an alcove with plaques sent from around the world purporting to support Juche. The guides clearly thought that a) this meant many around the world knew they were right; and b) that they were underground and in hiding in case they were killed for their beliefs. Our, equally fervent, belief that the plaques were sent by unhinged individuals or small groups, and that they had the right to believe whatever they wanted did not go down well. 

 

After a hilarious bookshop (propaganda anyone? - actually we bought loads as it was so much fun) we headed off to the birthplace of Kim Il Sung - a dull restored cottage in beautiful countryside just outside Pyongyang. This was our first experience of a 'reverential voice' in North Korea. When they talk about the leaders they're expected to use a 'special voice'. I have no idea how to describe this except that it warbles and sound a bit as if they're crazy. News readers do it too, for 'special news', or anything that mentions the leaders.

 

As a group we were extremely keen to ask millions of questions, some innocuous, some pushing the boundaries - it turned out that as a group we pushed more and asked more but were better behaved in general - remembering to say DPRK or not taking photos unless we'd asked first. To begin with our questions made the guides a bit uncomfortable and sometimes I think they'd deliberately lose their incredible ability with our language to mask this. Other times they realised we weren't meaning to be rude and tried their best to give us satisfactory answers. Satisfactory could range from actually answering the question to diversions, depending on how audacious the question was in the first place.

 

Because we couldn't go to the mausoleum we went to the circus instead - a proper communist circus in a fixed building. We were the only westerners in there. On one side were army youth in uniforms, on the other side were young pioneers and in front of us were Japanese (North) Koreans on their annual pilgrimage to the fatherland. They stood out a mile for their digital cameras, nice bags and general good health and size. To begin with I thought they were the most elite in the country but then we realised they were from abroad, which made them even more fascinating. I had so many questions for them but clearly never got a chance to meet them.

 

The circus was a strange experience. Despite the live orchestra every piece sounded like a bad demo on an old Casio keyboard (that's a skill, no?). The acts were pretty good although nothing compared to a children's performance we saw a few days later. I was pretty upset by the ice skating bears and monkeys - not something I enjoy seeing. As in many developing countries there's no understanding of our view of cruelty to animals. At least here they get that we are unhappy, even if they do not understand it.

 

Day 3:

We began our day with a trip to Mt Myohyang to see a Buddhist temple before going to the International Friendship Collection. This collection is EVERY gift ever given to either leader (and Kim Jong Il's mother) by any foreigner. That's a lot of gifts stored in a big, underground paranoid bunker! I think they said it would take eighteen months just to see every gift given to Kim Il Sung. We did not spend that much time there but we did have a lot of fun looking at some of the ugliest gifts we've ever seen. Most gifts were from crackpot individuals or from businessmen from China.

 

We stopped outside one room and were informed that inside was a statue given by someone or other. We could all tell it was important but had no idea why, until the door opened and we were ushered in... imagine a beautiful mountain vista on the far wall, the two side walls lined with more gifts, gently rousing music playing and a life-size waxwork model of Kim Il Sung ahead. Then imagine being asked (told) to bow to it without laughing. Almost impossible? Yup. To our guides this was clearly so important and so special but to us it was like going to Madame Toussauds and being asked to bow to one of the models. We all did pretty well at stifling our giggles but honestly, not well enough. We had some slightly tense joking with the guides about the gifts and how sad we'd be if we sent gifts that ended up in a museum not being used. We were challenged to send a gift so good KJI just had to keep it: C suggested an X-box, which I thought wasn't bad.

 

As we were leaving here I asked what I thought was a pretty innocuous question: 'when Kim Jung Il dies, will he also be considered an eternal leader like his father?'. Sadly, I asked the guide least proficient in English which resulted in my question being repeated in front of everyone. The guides were horrified; they couldn't imagine the death or even begin to speculate what might happen. To begin with they thought I might have been hinting that the guy was already dead, which I wasn't. The very thought of their dear leader dying seemed to really upset them and one even feigned a heart attack to demonstrate horror - I have to say I suspected that might not have been entirely real though.

 

After lunch, on our way back to the city C and I managed to have an extremely interesting conversation with one of the guides about the UN, the USA and keeping hatred going. I asked him if he thought it was weird that as a Jew I could not hate Germans. I suggested they could choose not to teach hatred in schools and that it might help. He didn't think it was the same since the Americans are still active in their rhetoric against North Korea in his book. While I know there are American soldiers across the border and Bush did declare the place part of the 'axis of evil' (stupid man), their paranoia is what keeps all this going and that is so, so sad. One guide was happy to discuss like this, one ignored that it was going on at all and one was demonstrably uncomfortable and trying to think of ways to stop us all chatting. It's so sad. People here really believe that we hate them, they think we spend all our time thinking up ways to annihilate them and their way of life. If only they knew that most of the world truly does not care at all. They think our papers are full, on a daily basis, of articles about them and that we are all stooges of the USA and are only looking for excuses to destroy them. I think they'll be broken hearted when they realise how unimportant they are to most people.

 

Our last stop was the Children's Palace where the country's most talented (privileged?) children spend all their spare time learning to dance/sing/sew/play instruments/play sport. We were told it was to allow the kids time to have hobbies but further questioning surfaced the fact that actually they find out what a kid has a talent for and then hot house him/her. There is no doubt that the kids were incredibly talented but again, it was just scary to see small kids (as young as six or seven) behave like adults. We saw a show they put on and every performance was perfect. Every child was incredible, far superior to anything we would see from our own kids or even many professional performers. Still, how it's achieved terrifies me. I understand that the idea of the tour is to show us the best of everything but I know that most children in the country are not attending palaces like this one. In Pyongyang the other kids go to after school clubs and who knows what happens in other places, probably nothing.

 

Day 4:

Today I learned that Koreans invented the spoon in the C12 and gunpowder too. I also learned that months in the west are named after animals! I have no idea how I coped without this information before. I also learned that the father is always right and that by suggesting I don't think my dad is always right (sorry, pop), I was insulting them and their leader, who they see as their father.

 

We then went on to the DMZ, which I saw from the other side 12 years ago. More fun from the north, for sure: nowhere near enough crazy in the south. We were told by one of our guides that the South Koreans are considering using megaphones and tvs to throw propaganda at the North Koreans across the border. Apparently, if they do this, the North will consider this an act of war and shoot. Nice. This was the first time any of us got angry with the nonsense we were hearing. C very calmly asked if he thought this was a good response to tv. Yes, he did. When faced with mad dogs, one has to kick, was the response. TV propaganda is an act of war and that's that.

On the actual border line there are a number of bunkers manned by the north and some by the south. We were allowed into one - I wondered about the Americans leaving sweets by the southern door to entice the guards across but didn't feel I could ask. My anger continued here in the room where the armistice was signed when I saw for myself just how North Koreans are living - in a state on constant fear. They have been brainwashed to believe that we hate them and that war is imminent. They are all living in fear. My heart breaks for them as I hear them spout nonsense. The number of times we heard a guide or soldier-guide claim 'it's a very tense situation, it's very dangerous', I think, says it all. The South doesn't even have soldiers at the DMZ, or at least not that we could see. The North Korean guide told us it's because they use CCTV to monitor the area - surely that says it all?

 

We were also taken to see 'the wall'. It seems the South Koreans have built an anti-tank wall. The North claims they did it in secret and deny its existence but I think that's wrong, we know it's there even if the Americans may be denying it (why?). We couldn't see it though as there was too much mist. The 'general' who was also our tour guide was pretty entertaining. His medals were just one chunk of plastic made to look like medals. He was so excited to meet a real American but his parting words were: 'it's because of you that I'm here!'. Hear it to believe it! The same guy then joined us in the minibus and sang for us - I've never had a general sing for me before. He also seemed to enjoy a rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, which was a bit odd (note: I later heard the driver humming it, wonder if he knew what it was?).

 

Much of the day in the bus was taken up with the basic question 'can we take a picture now? Now? Now?' Due to the huge number of military installations across the country we had to be careful. I was amazing how quickly the guides could scan the horizon and give an answer. As a group we did see some installations: tanks, bunkers, guns, but clearly nowhere near as much as we could have with some training. We never asked why the answer was no and I think the guides appreciated that.

 

We spent the night in a town named Kaerson (sp?). As a reward for good behaviour we were taken to a quite spot overlooking the town to sit and contemplate - very interesting. Just sitting quietly revealed a lot - the noise of a town going about its daily business, complete with megaphone blasting their own propaganda: 'let's all work hard for the leader' type stuff.

 

Our hotel here was a traditional Korean hotel - five rooms around a courtyard. It was just beautiful. C and I were lucky enough to be given the only room with a living room so we invited everyone in for drinks all night. Two of the guides even joined us and we had a hilarious evening just hanging out, forgetting politics. We even discussed transsexuals and sex-change operations. An enormous thunderstorm and the loudspeaker that was turned on around 5am meant not much sleep for any of us.

 

Day 5:

On very little sleep and some big hangovers, we headed back to Pyongyang. First stop was the Three Revolutions 'Museum' (my quotation marks, not theirs). The first building we checked out was called the 'Heavy Industry' room. We were shown around a room for of machinery, basically. The highlights, for me, included some scart leads and collections of coal. What they consider impressive is extremely telling. The piece de la resistance seemed to be a computerised lathe that they claim they're importing all around the world. Given that we had electric lathes at school in the 1990s, this didn't quite ring true for most of us. I found it hard to mask my boredom and irritation in here, which led to an exchange with one of the guides that went something like this:

 

G: aren't you interested?

C: not really

G: why?

C: because we have machines at home so nothing here is very special or exciting even if you made it yourselves

G: oh. I think it's interesting.

 

We then moved on to the Juche hall, which was simply a collection of books written by the Dear and the Great. Dull again, nowhere near as interesting as it could have been. I was interested to learn more about the ideals of Juche (self sufficiency) but learned nothing apart from the height of a mountain near the birthplace of the Dear Leader - some nonsense about it being the same as the digits of his birthday.

 

Next was the anger inducing Korean War Museum, or to give it its full title "The Victorious Fatherland Liberation Museum", this was both hilarious and terrifying. The soldier/tour guide whisked us round rooms getting herself mixed up and offering us an entertaining look at the North Korean psyche. I was convinced she would end up in a gulag given the knots she tied herself into. Once she started using paintings of battles to prove what happened, I gave up listening too carefully. I do remember, however, some claim that North Korea was attacked by America, rallied its troops, defended its borders and sacked Seoul in three days. Of course it did. A wonderful diorama and panorama were used to demonstrate battles to us. They were just beautiful but hardly what I would call proof. My favourite moment came when inspecting aeroplanes captured in the war when the soldier/guide couldn't pronounce 'espionage' and was being given pronunciation lessons by our American. Priceless.

 

C and I both asked questions that were considered unacceptable by our guides: "has DPRK even conducted espionage?" and "does DPRK consider that it ever made mistakes in the war?" To begin with the soldier/guide tried to give the textbook answers of 'no' but then a flash of ingenuity shone through and she responded that 'perhaps DPRK had been involved in espionage, most countries had, but that she was just an ordinary person so how could she know?' Kudos for a great answer.

 

 A discussion about media and its use of language followed in the minibus. Every time we tried to suggest that North Koreans should temper their language if they want us to take them seriously, we were met with 'it's the North Korean way'. Fair enough but they will never be taken seriously if that's the case. We mentioned Wikipedia and how it works and suggested they get involved. That would be interesting as then they'd have to moderate their language.

 

Before heading to Nampo we stopped at Pyongyang's health spa - again, only available to the richest and most privileged, but don't let that spoil anyone's enjoyment. Some boys, C, included, went for a shave (inc. forehead and ears, oddly) while some of us went for a swim in the Olympic sized pool. I have to say that I've probably been in 50m pools only a handful of times in my life so this was pretty impressive. The female guide decided to come and swim with me (single sex lanes). So instead of swimming I spent my valuable hour teaching her the basics of swimming. Although I was a bit miffed to miss out on the swimming it was a lot of fun with her and for one, brief, hour we were just two girls enjoying the water together.

 

Of course, the spa was a total show piece and it's certainly only used by the most privileged but it was still interesting. The women's beauty parlour, for example, was pretty interesting since it looked like it hadn't changed since 1950. We were told that everything's new, it's just that fashion there looks like the 1950s to us. On the wall was a selection of haircuts available to people - no deviation please.

 

The route to Nampo is along a deserted eight lane highway that the Dear Leader, in his wisdom decided was necessary, during a famine. It's called the children's highway since they were co-opted/volunteered to make it. I don't know which was more upsetting, the sight of a deserted, crumbling highway that the guides believe will be chock-a-block with traffic in 2012, or the thought of hungry kids making the road, by hand, when they could have been studying/working on useful things/playing. Too often we heard reasons for kids to be taken out of school and put to work: once a week for weeding (every kid in the country), mass games practice, some other practice etc. etc.

 

Nampo is a spa resort on the coast - each of our rooms had a large mineral bath that we were encouraged to use in the spare 20 minutes we had between arrival and supper. Supper began with Korean sochu and a clam bbq organised by our guides. The bbq basically entailed shoving a load of clams on a mat, dousing them with petrol for 20 mins and burning the shit out of them. Delicious as long as one avoided the petrol taste! It was decided that the night was to be a drinking night so after supper, we retired to our private lounge to drink - beer with sochu poured in - ugh. The night got even better when two of the guides joined us. We were all drinking and enjoying being together, they even told us North Korean jokes:

 

Boy: Mummy, can I swim in the sea?

Mother: No darling, you can't.

Boy: But Daddy's swimming

Mother: Yes, but you're not insured.

 

From neat sochu to beer with sochu in it we moved to neat brown alcohol. None of us had any idea what it was but it certainly was potent.

 

Day 6:

A hangover from hell is not a good idea when faced with a long bus ride. I was planning on sleeping at our first destination: the barrage. I had no idea what a barrage might be but I was sure it would provide good sleeping time. Sadly it was interesting so I had to stay awake. One of the few sensible things we saw in this country: a dam type thing designed to do something neither C nor I can remember. He thinks it's to do with reclaiming land and flood prevention but I think it's to prevent salination of the river. Anyway, the video they showed us probably did tell us but we were concentrating on the hilarious propaganda and missed the facts. Ah well, that's North Korea for you. The video was so good I actually had to buy a copy. Our guides managed to grab a quick snooze here even if I didn't. I wonder what the Dear Leader would have to say about that?

 

We then moved to an orphanage in Nampo city. Given that I have spent a lot of time in similar institutions around the world I wasn't too concerned by what we saw. I'm sure the staff are doing their best by the kids, even if we didn't think some of them needed to be there. For some reason the North Korean way is to take triplets from their parents for the first three years of their lives. Clearly they've understood that triplets are born small and need extra post-natal care but they've then taken this to a very strange conclusion (not like them). It also seems that North Korea has more triplets than anywhere else, we saw far more sets than is normal. Questioning the validity of the decision to take children away from their parents rather than just offer support at home got us nowhere so we soon gave up. It was clear that none of the children were very healthy, all had skin problems and all looked fairly blank (and none were older than three). We were treated to an in promptu performance by these toddlers. Terrifying. They clearly spend a lot of their time being trained within an inch of their lives. Already perfecting the robotic smile of North Korean performers and the weird dance moves.  

 

A long drive back to Pyongyang along the Children's Highway and to our hotel for lunch, which I had to miss due to my hangover - sure I missed nothing since all meals are basically the same: soup, salad, kimchi, meat and rice.

 

After lunch we went to see the USS Pueblo, a US ship captured by the North Koreans. I had never heard of the ship prior to this visit and I think most westerners probably haven't as it simply wasn't considered to be of major importance. To North Koreans, however, it was a very big deal: proof that the USA was spying on them and wanted to return to war. I imagine it probably was a spy ship but there is no proof it was in North Korean waters when it was captured. There were copies of letters purportedly written by the US President apologising to Kim Il Song but I have no idea if they're real. I'll definitely be checking this out when I get home. The information/propaganda video was just hilarious and actually had us all laughing out loud at times, for me, particularly when the narrator declared that North Korea would 'declare wuuuur on the Imperialist forces of America'. Brilliant. We also learned that the reason the Americans wanted to fight North Korea was due to the depression in the USA after WWII (cue pictures of the Great Depression). Because the Americans could no longer sell munitions they had to force a war to allow them a market for their weapons. Nothing about proxy wars at all.

 

Since the funfair appeared to be broken we were taken bowling instead. It was impressive to see how exactly they had recreated a 1950s American bowling alley, right down to the ugly carpets and pool tables. The bar wouldn't even take our RMB, they only wanted USD; weird given how much they hate America.

 

We bumped into the Japanese Korean kids at the bowling alley. This time they were with the North Korean kids and the difference between them was so stark. The Japanese kids were healthy, normal sized, smiling and had good clothes, bags and cameras. The Koreans were malnourished, small and with poor clothing. Surely this should tell them everything they need to know?

 

I actually did notice a number of signs hinting at the dire poverty we weren't allowed to see: people washing themselves and their clothes in the stream by the road (enjoying a swim when I asked our guides!), people living in absolute hovels, kids with no shoes and big bellies. Everyone was smaller than they should be because the diet just isn't adequate. That these people are then forced to work building roads and completing other hard tasks disgusts me.

 

A walk in the park at the end of the day was a nice surprise. It wasn't on any itinerary but was a treat for us for having been so well behaved. The park was lovely and was being enjoyed by everyone and, just like in China, people we dancing in large groups. As we approached one group they broke off and began grabbing at us to dance with them. Most of us did (I was still feeling extremely sick so filmed rather than danced) and everyone loved it. I think they often see groups of foreigners and often get them to join in but for us it was really special. I was later grabbed and hugged by a (drunk?) woman as we walked.

 

Our last evening meal was a Korean duck BBQ, which was absolutely delicious. After supper I asked one of the guides to help me translate some postcards we'd bought. She wasn't allowed to sit with me alone so we had to have another guide there to make sure nothing untoward was said!

 

Day 7:

I was both relieved and sad to leave North Korea. I felt I'd made a bond with one of the guides that would now be lost, I just hope we manage to stay in touch, even if I can never say anything controversial in letters in case she gets in trouble.

 

The train journey was slow and nowhere near as interesting as we'd been led to believe. We'd hoped we'd see new scenery but I think we'd spent a lot of time in the countryside so didn't see much that was new. On the Chinese side of the border we had to wait for two hours and once the train started moving again we realised we were locked into the North Korean section of the train. While I understand that they may wish to prevent the North Koreans from moving around, we certainly weren't standing for this so stood and hammered at the door until they let us through. We were shouted at a bit by a guard but we stood our ground and all was eventually fine and we made it to the restaurant carriage where we had a feast of a meal and celebrated our safe return to China.

 

I certainly now see China in a new light. It has come an incredibly long way since the dark days of Mao and although there's plenty to not like about the place, it is fairly free, far more developed (in the cities) and capitalist than the North Koreans can even conceive of from their closest ally.

 

The conversations we had with the guides left me with the full gamut of emotions: confusion, amusement, sadness, anger. That the North Korean people can so firmly believe such nonsense about the world and their place within it breaks my heart every time I think about it. We came out with as many questions as we went in and we'll never be able to answer many of them. I know there must be some who don't believe whole heartedly, who are naturally curious or who simply don't give a damn but we were only permitted to meet those who either do fully believe or who are prepared to give that line to foreigners. Life in Pyongyang may be sweet compared to the rest of the country but in order to access it one must be cleaner than clean and accept even more control over life than those in the countryside. We learned that everyone must give up two weeks per harvest to plant rice and that every one cleans their home area once a week. There are big banners everywhere asking/telling people to do their patriotic duty.

 

2012 is apparently the year North Korea's fortunes will change. The tourists will come, trade will come and they will be a developed country. We were told this whilst driving down the empty eight lane highway. No one laughed, the three intelligent guides all believed this. I imagine that when it doesn't happen they will be able to blame America, the UN (America's stooge) and sanctions. It certainly won't be their fault and it couldn't possibly be the fault of the Dear Leader who advises and rules them so perfectly.  At one point I asked how the two Koreas could be reunified, predictably I received the answer, 'well we hope that the South will invite the Dear Leader to rule when they understand him better'. I decided enough was enough at this point and responded with a quiet, calm 'that will never happen'. The guide almost seemed to short-circuit and there ended that conversation.

 

I will be very interested to meet North Koreans when all this madness is over and they're free to travel and to think for themselves. I'll never forget this trip and what it's taught me about the frailty of the human mind and its ability to deceive itself.

 

What do I want to tell people about North Korea? I guess that the few people we were able to meet were lovely, kind and smart but very, very deluded. Before going there it was kind of funny to think that people might truly believe that KJI is so special; now, I'm appalled and disgusted. What a waste of talent. People are trained so well in certain things, they are dedicated and willing and all their talents are being wasted. Criminal. North Korea is so poor yet it doesn't need to be, it has more potential than anywhere else I've seen but will achieve nothing unless they get rid of the idiots at the top. It is terrifying what the human mind can be duped into believing - KJI can do no wrong, he knows more than everyone else, the world is out to get them, their lives are better than ours, their technology is world class, their media is an accurate portrayal of the world, everything will change by 2012...

 

If we're looking for a dictator to beat all dictators then KIS and KJI are incredible. They may not have killed as many of their own people as Stalin or Mao but they keep them subservient far more successfully through their cult of the leader nonsense.

 

I think what upset me the most was glimpsing the fear that feel is so real:  the fear that the rest of the world wants to annihilate them - a perfect excuse for KJI keeping everyone down and using his 'songun' policy (military first) to spend money on unnecessary military installations. I think the country might have a collective breakdown if they realised how unimportant they are and how most people really don't care.

 

The need to question seems to have been bred out of them - no one questions the media or their version of history. That we do question what we're told at school and on tv simply demonstrates that our system is inferior. If an entire nation can be taught to believe that paintings are historical evidences, that the media is always an accurate portrayal and that one man is basically a super hero then I have little hope for change.

 

The sanctions can only help if people aren't lied to about them. Yes, they'll hurt the top brass only but they're a perfect excuse for the lack of development. Even if they were cancelled I suspect KJI wouldn't tell the people. It's much easier to blame the USA than poor policies.

 

And then I look at China and see how far its come - there are no propaganda posters on the streets (they're consigned to museums and shops - just curios now). The only posters we see are for consumer products and films, just like anywhere else. People have access to most information and can get around censorship if they choose to. The place is clearly developing rapidly and although there's still huge poverty, they are working on its eradication. Their political system may not be to our taste but no one can say that China hasn't changed a great deal.