Breakfast at 6:30am in the revolving restaurant again. The psychedelic entrance to the restaurant was a little harder to take at this time of morning... ;)
Although there was a nice view we were told firmly “no photographs”. We snuck some anyway of course – including the giant rocket ship building.
Food was not great – dry chewy cold toast, and an “omelette” which was just cold hard egg. Our marmite helped.
Then SS and I left to go back to the room to get ready and as there was no-one to direct us, we took the wrong lift! We should have known by the cardboard lining the walls that this was the service lift, but we ended up on level 1 taking the “back door” out of the lift. The corridor we came into was dark, and we were clearly not where we should be. We walked a little way into the dark corridors, which had strange steps going up and down into larger darkened rooms with propaganda posters propped against bare walls,
before feeling like we would need a trail of breadcrumbs to get back to the lift. We could hear random noises and voices through the walls but no one was around – it was like the start of a horror film. As we headed back to the lift, a group of young hotel girls came out, saw us and started giggling, then rushed by through a locked door which shut behind them. Helpful and even more disconcerting. So back to the lifts, and we tried going up and getting out at level 2. Same issue, we wandered the halls thinking we would never get out of this place. It was simultaneously hysterical and very freaky more as we were in the DPRK. If this was Vegas you would know at some point you would come out somewhere where someone would help you – but here nothing is predictable. Finally I heard some feet on the fire stairs, and I barreled round the corner to see a nice middle aged hotel staff lady. My desperate face, and “HELP” noises were clear, and she looked both concerned and helpful, and beckoned for us to follow. Up some stairs, around a corner, through two sets of eerie looking double doors, and she led us through into the hotel lobby on level 2.
Phew! My version of thankyou in Korean was probably not right, but she knew what I meant. Wow…
So we hurried downstairs to meet the group for the day, got on the bus and after the last of our party joined (and Mr Strong got settled into his spot), we were off to the DMZ!
It was a looooooong drive down there with one nasty stop off for a comfort break (and the opportunity for some market entrepreneurs to set up some tables selling tat). Back on the road, the terrain got more and more mountainous. Pyongyang means “flat land” apparently and certainly the terrain around the capital is much flatter than the surrounding areas.
We could see various locals out the window doing weird random things. Just walking in a field aimlessly by themselves, digging a hole in the middle of a field, sleeping in a little raised hut above a field. None of them were supervised or operating with any degree of urgency. Just peculiar really.
It started getting hillier as we approached the border.
Mr Kang decided to tell us some history on the way to the DMZ. One of the “stories” was of the “axe incident” that happened in the late 1970s. Mr Kang’s version of the story was that it happened later (in the 2000s) and the South Koreans/evil US (always used interchangeably by any of the DPRK tour guides) wanted to chop down a tree that was blocking their view of the DPRK across the border. Mr Kang claimed that, unprovoked, the evilUSsoldier threw the axe at a DPRK soldier. The brave DPRK soldier caught the axe, and threw it back, unfortunately killing the US soldier. This led to hostilities for a week before they calmed down.
What actually happened was the US and South Koreans (after giving notice to the DPRK) went with axes to trim back the tree. The DPRK forces came out, watched for a while, and then told them to stop as Kim Il Sung had “personally” planted the tree. The axemen ignored the soldiers, so the DPRK guys went away, got reinforcements, came back, grabbed the axes, and attacked the two US soldiers, one of whom later died. 3 days later the US and South Koreans came out with chainsaws and took down the tree completely. Story over. There were a lot of these “he said, she said” style stories from our guides. It is sad really as they are not stupid people at all, just fed and taught propaganda.
We drove past Kaesong (where we would be coming back for lunch...) and could see the usual towering statue in the distance - they must have a lot of bronze available in the DPRK!
We finally got to the DMZ (Panmunjon), and noticed that they were clearly getting all the tour groups through in one day – there were five buses, including ours. And on the others were the nasty Young Pioneers groups (two bus loads). I didn’t like the YP group in general – they were loud, brash, rude travelers who were not in the DPRK to just observe and soak in the country. They were instead the type of people who do not adapt or react to their surroundings, they just bring their home personality with them and inflict it on everything and everyone around them. As all the groups were bused to all the sights together on the Friday, we got to see a lot of these aggrinoying people.
We were not allowed to take photos of the gates, but everything else was fine – another example of photo directions which really don’t make much sense… A charming poster with a finger (which apparently says "One Korea")
, and on the other side two slightly chubby looking children (I choose to believe the writing says "I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way...")
The whole purpose of taking us off the bus at this point was to search it apparently – not sure what they thought they would find apart from illicit capitalist chocolate bars? First stop was the gift shoppe and intro. SS tried on a puffy little bakers boy style Korean cap in the gift shoppe and was all keen to buy it until I said it was a bit YMCA. Ooops.
Unfortunately given the number of tour groups I had no idea the talk was starting in the next room, so I missed the map and orientation of where we were.
We were herded back to the bus, and driven through the next set of concrete gate posts, and on to the armistice museum.
This is where the talks were held in 1953, and the original table and chairs are kept there. As you can see from my curly wild hair - it was so hot and humid!
Mr Strong enjoyed sitting in one of the chairs and pretending he was negotiating.
There was another prefab style building next door where the actual armistice was signed, with a copy of the document there and clippings on the walls. It was so incredibly hot that I was spending most of my time fanning myself with my 6Yuan fan
– it paid for itself a million times over on this trip! Interestingly the actual flags that the signees sat behind were kept in glass boxes on the armistice table – and there was the DPRK flag and the UN flag. The guides informed us that the cowardly Americans could not even be bothered to bring their own flag to sit behind, but instead “hid” behind the UN flag instead.
On the way back on to the bus we noticed that the South Korean flag was clearly visible on the horizon – this was the first sign really that we were near the border.
Back on the bus and further down the road to the next stop. Past a giant recreation of Kim Il Sung's signature... (apparently the size of the stone is significant blah blah)
We were walked through a building which was like a 1960’s office block – all marble lined but depressing and absolutely STINKING of cigarette smoke. Up some stairs and out on to a balcony,
and we were looking towards another similar office block style building, and there were some barracks style smaller buildings in between, some painted turquoise blue.
I had no idea what I was looking at (since I missed the orientation), until it was explained that the concrete ridge that ran along the middle of the barracks building was the actual border line. No barbed wire, fencing etc. The blue buildings were the “shared” ones. The empty building opposite was the South Korean border building. For one of the supposed most tense areas on earth, this had no sense of tension to me at all. The DPRK soldiers were the only military visible – the South Koreans just have video cameras and loud speakers on their side when we were there (which were silent). No-one is armed of course (it is the DMZ after all!). After a while the soldiers all marched back into one of the buildings where the aircon was on presumably.
So I was trying to imagine the history of what we were looking at, but the YP groups were running around shouting, making silly faces and taking selfies, and generally acting like 3 year olds- didn’t help the feeling of tension either. I still do not understand why they wanted to go to the DPRK.
We got a group photo with the senior military officer who had shown us around the DMZ, and Mr Strong was happy to be front and centre. SS of course managed to hide behind Kristina – he so loves having group photos taken - look behind the fedora...
Next we headed back to Kaesong for lunch. The town itself was really interesting, with locals going about their business...
including this man on a bicycle with a dead pig slung across the back...
where we had lunch at a hotel that was built around a stream in the traditional style. Tourists can stay there to see how hotels used to be run. I could imagine that the only equivalent would be staying in an 18th century style coaching inn without an ensuite.
Lunch was taken “traditional style” sitting at low tables on the floor.
Most people over the age of 10 can’t really sit cross legged on the floor for more than a few minutes, so this was not great. There were all sorts of contortions going on, and the room was quite warm. The food was generally good however with many small bronze dishes continuing to arrive filled with very traditional (presumably) food with ingredients like acorns, carrots, chilli and seaweed. (and mystery meat, presumably dog)
Back on to the bus and we were off to the Koryo museum. This was a museum built in the style of an old Korean estate. As the Japanese burnt it down in the late 1500s it certainly does not date from the Koryo dynasty (which was around 900 I think), but it was still pretty. There are a lot of similarities with Chinese style architecture to me.
But I don’t claim to be an expert at all. They had a model of what is should have looked like.
We were traipsed through various rooms looking at old artefacts and pottery, as well as a recreation of King Konmings tomb.
Thank goodness for my fan – the temperature must have been close to 40 degrees and full humidity – even with it I was a pool of perspiration. Heading out there was the stamp and postcard shop. Unfortunately (you guessed it) the YP tour group was already in there. They were like pack animals falling on prey around the postcard racks. Grabbing 20-30 postcards each, snatching at posters, pushing up to the payment desks, shouting and screaming at each other.
It was at this point that I realized in any case that I would not be able to buy the sort of postcards and posters I had in mind, ie those with representations of the Great Leaders. This made complete sense to me however as why would the DPRK sell pictures or paintings of the leaders they revere to tourists, who would not respect them in the same way?
Back on the bus, for the long drive back to Pyongyang. We did enjoy seeing what was visible on Maps and other apps as we went around - needless to say there was no mobile or internet we could connect to, so this was all GPS based.
As we drove our attention was directed to the "Mother Mountain" - you can see it in the background below. Apparently this resembles a pregnant woman lying on her back... Not so sure myself...
We did see some towns as well, which were much more rundown and poor than Pyongyang, and I can only imagine these have been tidied up, knowing that they are next to the Liberation Highway and so visible to tourists.
Of course, we had to stop at the same rest stop as where we had stopped on the way down. But amusingly, the stall holders/sellers of tat had (in the meantime), picked up their tables and dragged them across the road to make sure they could get our business on the way back from the DMZ. Not that it mattered – given we did not see another car on the whole Liberation Highway, it would have been no hardship to walk across the road to where they were earlier.
SS got talking to Mr Kang about ginseng, but we didn’t buy any there as Mr Kang said there was a better place with higher quality that we could go to later.
Pretty much everyone napped on the bus on the way back at different times – it was amusing to see all the lolling heads and drooling. The Irish couple on the tour (Noel and Kathy) had the right idea – they had a large travel pillow that they shared and so no lolling for them – they looked very comfortable! The views out the window remained interesting, but it was a long drive...
Based on my understanding, reunification is unlikely until something cataclysmic happens in the north, but even then I doubt South Korea is all that keen. As we know, and as our German friend on the tour later confirmed, West Germany found the economic absorption of East Germany very challenging with unforeseen problems that still continue to this day. The DPRK is mostly mountainous, and whilst it has some mineral wealth, it is not capable of intensive farming etc. There were almost four times as many West Germans, who were also three times as wealthy as the East Germans. Whereas in this case there are half as many North Koreans but considerably poorer (some estimates say the average per capita GDP in the DPRK is one fiftieth of that in South Korea). But of course GDP in North Korea is a concept more than anything - as everyone is effectively employed by the State, it cannot be seen to have a true economy or monetary system.
We convinced Mr Kang and Ms Pang to give us 30minutes at the hotel to freshen up and change as we were all puddles of sweat after the long hot humid day, then we were back on to the bus and off to the Taedongang brewery. From the outside again it looked like a 1960s low rise office block,
but once inside and up the stairs it looked like a proper nice bar.
We squeezed into the benches (Mr Strong got his own faux tree slab cushion)
and ordered some beers. Here they were done by number and whilst we had no idea really what we were getting (apparently the types were divided by their percentage of barley), they were very good – SS and I both had 7s. The second one went down well (I had a 2 and SS had a 3) as well. We were all keen to settle in for the night, but we were marched back to the bus and on to dinner.
We did get a good view of the Juche Tower across the road all lit up.
This was not the best food we had on the trip. It was in a place that looked like a cafeteria, and the food was about the same.
There were dumplings, egg, rice, soup and mystery meat (I swear it was dog). Back on the bus, and back to the hotel.
It wasn’t early, but the cool kids (and us) headed to the bar.
So there was Noel, Kathy, Jake (from Phoenix, Arizona) and Nick (from Melbourne). Had a great night with likeminded people.
The bar snacks on offer were certainly “unique”.
I am not sure where I have seen a tin of tuna fish on offer as a delicacy, but the guys at the table next to us certainly were enjoying sharing one (look closely next to his beer glass - they were literally picking tinned tuna out of the can with their fingers)…
Kathy doesn’t drink much beer so wanted a vodka lemonade. In DPRK (like China actually), they are not used to spirits and mixers – generally spirits are drunk neat. So when Noel went up to the bar, he asked for a bottle of sprite.
Language was an issue, and eventually he managed to get the concept across. However he was dumbfounded when the waitress got a bottle of sprite, emptied it down the sink, then handed him the bottle. Hilarious. There was his requested “bottle of sprite”. He managed to explain that he did want the contents as well, so eventually after many more hand gestures and slow loud speaking, Kathy had her (full) bottle and separate glass of vodka!
We were having a lovely evening dissecting the tour, guides and everything else we had seen, when suddenly Mr Kang popped up to remind us that the clocks were changing at midnight to go back half an hour. Ooops. So we had another round to celebrate. Beers were only Euro2 each (a lot for locals, but not for tourists). We finished up at midnight, then headed to bed. As we headed up, we saw Mr Li and Mr Kang sitting on the bench in the lobby, maybe waiting to ensure we didn’t try to sneak out? The people staying on the side facing the station were all woken by the siren that went off at 12:30am to announce the time change, but we missed it completely!
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