North Korea - Part 2

The next day we were taken to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang which is the mausoleum of the president Kim Il Sung. I don't know the history of the building - whether it was constructed specifically to hold his corpse or whether it was his residence and was converted after he died, but it was a vast marble-lined palace - effectively empty except for his body and a room detailing his awards and gifts from other countries. There were hoards of people outside, barely speaking and all dressed in their best clothes (I even had to buy a shirt and tie in Beijing before I left).

When we entered we stepped onto a travelator which carried us at a pre-determined speed through the palace to give us time to contemplate that great acts of the great man. It's easy to joke about it but to the North Korean people this man commands deep respect and it would extremely rude to joke around just because you think he's a vile murdering egomaniac, so we politely kept quiet and did what was expected of us - we could save our comments about him for when we got to China.

As we got deeper into the building, rousing fanfare music playing on a continuous loop got louder and louder and we entered a room with a massive portrait of the president. The whole atmosphere was of deep reverence and as strange as it sounds you did get carried along with it a bit. We were led into the room with his body - the light was low and he was lying in a glass case, covered with a sheet from below the shoulders. We walked round the body in groups of four and were expected to bow four times, at the head, each side and his feet before we were led out.

We were given a portable audio player which told of his last days and which bordered on the ludicrous. I don't remember the exact words but it was something like the citizen's tears formed rivers which carried him to heaven or some such nonsense. It was delivered by an Englishman who was either deranged or just a comical genius - I couldn't decide. The same speech was given in Korean by female guides and many of the Koreans in the room were in tears.

This last point was very interesting to me because I remember in 1994 when Kim Il Sung died, the news reports showed pictures of throngs of people weeping in the streets, and not just a few tears either - they were really getting stuck in and collapsing and screaming and everything. The reporter said that it was unclear if it was staged or not but it was pretty clear to me that it must have been because it's just not a typical reaction you see to the death of a world leader. But, as I saw these women crying over 10 years after the event I did start to wonder whether that outpouring of grief in 1994 was actually genuine after all. I'm not saying it's normal but if you're brought up to believe the guy is immortal (and apparently they used to start every day asking for the eternal life of the leader) then I guess you'll be a bit miffed if he went and died. Of course, you could say that the tears in the mausoleum were staged as well and I'll never know but from a personal point of view I don't think they were and what's more is that I don't think I saw very much at all during my trip that had been staged. The Korean people we saw just didn't seem to have much interest in us - so they'd have a look at us and note that we were Western but unless you made an attempt to interact with them by waving then they'd just carry on as normal.

Anyway, that's what I think so there we go!

After the mausoleum we went outside to wait and found ourselves in the middle of a Korean military display. I don't know how many troops there were but there must have been a good few thousand that marched past us, all of them singing and I must commend them on their tunefulness - if they fight as well as they sing then they'll go far. Unfortunately our guides weren't happy with us taking pictures up close but I do have some from a distance and they make quite an impressive sight.

Afterwards we left Pyongyang to go to a farm in a place called Wonsan on the east coast. The drive was fun since one of the buses broke down (we were split into two groups) and we had to hang around for 2 hours until they caught up. It did give us an opportunity to go off and wander and take the opportunity to make our guides very nervous. We enjoyed waving at passing army trucks and cars as if it was quite normal to encounter a bunch of western guys strolling along the road miles from nowhere in a country that is supposedly closed to foreigners. Then when we got back on the road it was getting dark and we discovered that the bus had no heating. We were frozen as we got to the hotel and were looking forward to our dinner but as we got to the restaurant it had no heating either. Then they served us some mildly warm fish and some cold cucumber. But of course nobody dreamed of complaining because we were dining like kings while people were starving in this country.

The farm itself wasn't hugely interesting - basically they were trying to show us how the country can survive on its own without any help from the outside (an assertion which is complete drivel) but we enjoyed having a look around a town that wasn't Pyongyang. We even saw a cruise liner that our guides told us was used to ferry Japanese passengers to North Korea for them to meet family members (presumably left over from the Japanese occupation) but it's rumoured that it's not allowed to leave port because it's used for North Korean drug running. Tut tut!

The drive back was far less entertaining and thankfully it was still light when we arrived in Pyongyang - after the long drive through the fields and general nothingness of the North Korean countryside, Pyongyang was quite the little thriving metropolis and all the statues, towers and grand buildings were floodlit giving the city a very pleasant look. It was certainly a different look to the place when we first arrived because most of the city was in darkness - probably in the midst of yet another blackout. It can't be denied though that Pyongyang at night is a sight worth seeing - and with barely any traffic and no McDonalds or Starbucks then you have to see its attractions.

The next day was one of the largest events in the North Korean calendar - the birthday of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung. Quite what was going to take place today nobody seemed to know but Pyongyang was in celebratory mood. As usual we woke up to revolutionary songs at 7am blasting across the entire city (call me picky but if that happened where I live I'd be out there in the middle of the night with a sledgehammer demolishing those speakers) and we set off to do some sight seeing around Pyongyang. First stop was the Juche tower - Juche being the principle of 'self-reliance' developed by yes, you've guessed it, the big Kim I-S coming atcha. We got the lift to the top and then I saw perhaps one of the scariest things I've ever seen. You see, we had a cameraman following us around all the time in the hope that he could sell us a DVD at the, shall we say ambitious cost of 40 Euro each after the tour. He was quite a character and could generally be seen in his black head to toe outfit racing ahead of us to capture us walking, or standing, or his particular favourite: walking over a bridge. He often complained that he was very hot which was unsurprising because he was always running somewhere in search of his next cinematographic (now there's a word!) masterpiece and he often embellished it by hiding behind some flowers so you would get a sort of out of focus flutter flower in the foreground. Kim Jong Il (a renowned movie buff, even if he has dire tastes) would have approved of this talented individual. Anyway, at the top of the Juche tower he decided that his best angle was to be found from clambering onto the 6 inch wide wall and crouching down to the height that he would have been had he been standing up. Ignoring the 150 foot drop, he climbed onto the wall one handed, camera in the other hand, in a style reminiscent of a drunk man trying to tie his showlaces and shot his two seconds of footage - footage of 10 very pale westerners with jaws agape wondering if they were about to see our cameraman die for his profession. In anticipation of 250 quid from "You've Been Framed" I whipped out my camera but alas he survived.

We spent the rest of the morning going to various statues and stuff that celebrated Kim and his triumphs and great acts and all the rest of it before heading to a park for a stroll. The park was full of North Koreans who it appeared had spent the day celebrating and who were now rather jolly and quite frankly completely hammered. They were all dancing and having a great time (apart from the unconscious ones) and they all seemed incredibly relaxed. They received us warmly and before long those of us that didn't have their wits about them were dragged into the dancing - much to the amusement of the locals, since we didn't have a clue how to dance and were making prize fools out of ourselves (not me of course - for a start I managed to avoid the boozed up 150 year old women that were prowling around and secondly I am a formidable dancer). It was a special experience - everybody on the tour felt the same and it was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me.

We went to see a Mass Dance in Kim Il Sung square but I'm not sure if it materialised or not. We definitely saw about 20,000 people dancing but we were told that this was a rehearsal so we went into the art gallery to look at some revolutionary paintings about Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. All around the city were photos of the pair of them in a school or in a factory or a hospital or something. And usually it said something about them offering 'On the spot guidance' which was a term that we came to love. The fact that they could just turn up and tell some scientists how to do their job was ridiculous but if you can do no wrong then you can say what you want. When we came out the rehearsal was still going so we went off for dinner and then went back to the hotel.

Our last day we were all pretty tired from the hectic week we'd had - the schedule was pretty tiring but very fulfilling and after the day we'd had yesterday then it would take a lot to beat that. We started by visiting the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery which is where Korean War Heros are buried (including the wife of Kim Il Sung who apparently did some ambiguous heroic task during the war). It was very nice though - perched up upon a hill overlooking the city, each grave had a bronze bust of the hero in question with the facial features as close to the individual as possible.

Afterwards we went off to see an old temple but I wasn't really too interested by this point - I wanted revolutionary propaganda and weirdness!!! Finally we went to see the birthplace of Kim Il Sung which looked like it had been built from new and had lots of pristine tools and things. I don't think many people believed it was genuine but we politely listened.

And that was our last full day in Pyongyang. The next day was an early start to get the train to China. The journey was interesting because you got a glimpse of what North Korea is really truly like behind the mask. There were apartment blocks that were completely run down and barely any roads, just muddy tracks - even as a main street. Obviously we didn't see much but it looked like tough living, and in winter it must be unbearable.

Before long we were at the border and after a speedy 2 hour customs check of the train we were into China. The difference between the countries couldn't have been more stark - as we crossed the river into Dandong (a city that sells its tourism based on its proximity to DPRK) we could see glitzy neon lights and high rise buildings. As we looked back into DPRK we could see muddy fields and darkness.

I've missed out a few things that we did - mainly because I forgot what day we did it on. We visited the USS Pueblo which is an American ship the DPRK captured while it was spying on them. Naughty Americans. The sailors were released after an apology from the US but not before they were tortured (not that we were told this last part during the tour). We also visited the Philatelic Bureau and bought lots of revolutionary stamps with drawings of Americans being crushed and things. The Korean War museum gave the North Korean side of the story basically accusing the Americans of being aggressors and it also displayed lots of captured American military hardware.

Well, this was quite the epic blog entry but there was so much to tell and I really wanted to try and give you a picture of the place. Like I say, if you can visit then do because it's not your typical tourist destination and it's an experience to be cherished.