Perilous in Pyongyang

In 2013 I visited North Korea and wrote a feature on it for the Telegraph. In early 2024 the travel section of the paper asked me to write a recap on the visit in a few paragraphs. I kept it sardonic – an example: 

Our sightseeing involved an endless diet of monuments and museums to the various Kims and their stellar achievements. These included the Museum of the Construction of the Metro and – wait for it – the Museum of the Construction of the Museum of the Construction of the Metro. There were several funfairs because funfairs are Kim Jong-un’s idea of a good time. In one I had my Ray-Bans nicked (I had put them down briefly to take a photo) and when I complained was told I must have imagined it “because there is no crime in the DPRK”. 

The reality was darker. I travelled under my own name but with a contrived identity, as an executive of a UK tour operator (one that really exists) wanting to recce North Korea as a possible new destination for my clients. The trip was organised by a Beijing-based travel company run by an English bloke who assured me I would be in no danger of being unmasked as a journalist. It didn’t feel like that. 

I spent one day in the sole company of a guide and minder who grilled me relentlessly on details about the tour operator I was supposedly working for: location, size, management structure, turnover etc. I blagged and blathered, trying and failing to turn the conversation back on him. I’ve no idea if they saw through me, or how close I was to being banged up. But just before I arrived a US citizen, Kenneth Bae, had been sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour and that played on my mind the whole time I was there (Bae was released the following year). 

The return journey to Beijing was by train and it took 12 hours to reach the Chinese border. When we finally trundled over the river bridge it was nearly midnight, and as I craned my neck from the carriage window the dim lights of benighted North Korea were quickly swallowed in darkness behind me. Relief!  Dazzled by China’s brightness, I felt I had come home.