Airport to Hotel

The journey into Pyongyang began with an introduction from the local lead guide, Ms Kim. She was briefing us but it something which I did not expect was watching out of the window, seeing the local people! I was under the impression that would we would see very little of the way the local people really live and that they would take us to places designed for tourists, I was wrong! I was mesmerised by watching the people on their bikes, the kids playing and the ladies carrying loads of heavy stuff on their backs. We got to see the houses, some nice, some not so nice, just like any other big city really. 

One of the guys in the group asked if we could stop off to get some beer (I laughed to myself, no chance!!), then the guide said 'sure, we can stop off at a hotel on the way and buy some'. We stopped at the hotel and to my amazement, there were quite a few locals around! We were kind of ushered into the hotel and we bought some beers, incredibly cheap at about 50cents each for a big bottle!! We had to go straight to the railway station after that to meet the rest of the group. We arrived at the railway station and were told the train was late, about 30mins, this was probably the best 30mins of the entire day, we were in a central square and we could see the locals up close, hundreds of them and wave, speak to them. Some of them did not react at all to us and others liked to wave or smile, every time they saw us they looked a little shocked as they are not used to seeing westerners.

We were told we could take pictures or film anything we wanted unless told not to, but no military, poor people, construction or checkpoints. The DPRK has many checkpoints as not only are the majority of the citizens not allowed to leave their country, they are also not allowed to travel freely within their country. Us as westerners were not allowed to travel freely at all, we must at all times be accompanied by the guides, unless in the hotel grounds. Back at the railway station I tried to film a building but straight away one of the guards whistled at me and told me not to film, the guides did not respond to this. The giant square outside of the station had a massive screen with Korean karaoke playing, although nobody seemed to be singing. By now we were all drinking our beers and having a great time interacting with the locals. We all seemed to get along really well which was a huge bonus and I could tell this was going to be a great bunch of people to spend the next few days with. 

At the station we met our western guide Josh and were reunited with the rest of the group. After this we drove to our hotel which was situated on an island and then met later in the evening for a meal. The hotel was not so bad, it was quite outdated but they had made it very nice. The hotel was the only place we were allowed to roam freely.  We were placed on the 39th floor with a great view of the city, they don’t have health and safety like they do in the USA or Europe, would have been very easy to jump out of the hotel window! The western guides assured us in the meeting that the rooms were not bugged; we did however have a very old radio built into the bedside cabinet between our beds with a hell of a lot of wires coming out! Needless to say we were careful what we said in the bedrooms about the DPRK just in case.