At Beijing Airport and Air Koryo Flight

A lot of cargo!

The first moment I had contact with any DPRK citizens was in the terminal at Beijing airport, at the check in desks the experience was mesmerizing. I have never in my life seen check-in desks full of people and their cargo, there were countless boxes and cases, we spent about 30mins checking in for the flight and us with our case each and carry-on bag looked like we were the light travellers. We got to meet a couple of other members of the group and we all seemed to get along very well. All of a sudden, an older German guy who was in our group came up to us at the check in and said to the guide that he has a leg problem and has to fly back to Germany ASAP, the conversation lasted about a minute and then he walked away quite normal. We suspected maybe he had last minute nerves about visiting the DPRK, but of course he could have been ill as he said. Later in the tour one of the group who was from the USA told me that he had almost backed out the night before as he was afraid due to high tensions in between the DPRK and Malaysian citizen not being allowed to leave the country. 

The first impression in Beijing airport of the North Koreans was that they were reserved, I tried a couple of times to smile at them, they stared back but with no reaction, I only saw men in suits but no women. They all were wearing the red badges with the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il pictures. 

The boarding for the flight was no different really to any other flight. They announced the boarding and we boarded the Tupolev 240 as normal, the only difference for us as western travellers was the thrill and excitement of flying to North Korea, one of the worlds most restricted and secretive countries. On boarding the flight we were greeted warmly by the Air Koryo crew and felt welcome, the atmosphere was weird but in a good way, the crew were very friendly but reserved of course. The aircraft looked slightly retro inside but compared to an average Boeing or Airbus, there was little difference from a passenger perspective.

George and Nats!

The flight was fairly normal; they were playing local Korean shows on the TV but incredibly low sound so you couldn’t really hear it. We were served the famous hamburger but it wasn’t bad at all, it was more of a cold sandwich, pork I think. I 3was sitting next to a young couple George and Nats who I instantly warmed too, Justin sat behind me as we both wanted a window seat to see as much as possible, needless to say, from the air North Korea didn’t look that much different to anything else from a plane window!