Socialism in Sensible Shoes

Young-hae and I set out early to escape the traffic jams and to allow enough time to visit the famous and beautiful mountain of Sulak-san in the far north of South Korea. We reached the border in the early afternoon, after a relatively leisurely eight-hour trip up the east coast, stopping at a couple of nice beaches en route.

Our accommodation for the night was a Korean condo about 45 minutes south of the DMZ, so we had to
rise at 5:00 a.m. the next morning to make the 6:00 a.m. rendezvous with the bus that would take us over the border. We awoke to find it still dark and raining steadily.

Reaching the hotel where the bus departs, we encountered the first potential problem.

Our guide examined my documents and noticed that the travel agent in Changwon had entered my nationality
as Australian despite that the only documentation she had received was my New Zealand passport. This, he informed us, could be a problem, as the North Koreans are extremely particular about the accuracy of all paperwork. His solution to this dilemma was to advise me not to say anything about it unless the North Koreans made an issue of it, a suggestion that hardly left me brimming with confidence.

After completing the formalities, we boarded the bus and headed north.

Signs of the Times

There are surprisingly few visible signs of the intense militarization that characterizes the border region, though you still sense it is there.

Military bases are briefly glimpsed, with more presumably tucked away in the numerous valleys of the region. Occasionally, military trucks would pass us, and in several places, the road has huge concrete blocks perched precariously on either side, obviously to be felled at short notice if an attack occurs to block a rapid advance down the peninsula.

The beaches on the upper east coast are festooned with barbed wire, scattered with mine fields, and periodically studded with huge concrete teeth to prevent tanks using them as an alternative invasion route
to the highway.

After a short drive, we reached the South Korean customs post overlooking the DMZ and disembarked.
There were 40 or 50 buses crossing at that time of the day and they disgorged an intriguing array of Korean tourists, ranging from gum-chewing Catholic nuns to a miniature band of their female Buddhist counterparts, their heads shaved, and dressed completely in the standard Buddhist grey.

The Buddhists made an unusual group, all chewing gum, and none reaching chest-height. Obviously a vegetarian diet doesn't do wonders for growth. Most of the tourists,however, were dressed in hiking attire
and appeared excited at the prospect of a day in the North Korean mountains.

The DMZ

After passing through South Korean customs without a hitch, we again boarded the bus and set out into the DMZ. This is initially marked by a triple fence, topped with razor wire, strung with other suspicious-looking wires, with mines presumably buried in the bare earth between.

The border here is very rugged, and both North and South Korean observations posts are clearly visible
on every ridge top.

As both nations are expert tunnelers, it is safe to assume bunker complexes lie buried beneath the surface.
The foliage in the four-kilometre wide DMZ is far more luxuriant than on either side, presumably so few
people wander into its verdant, but exceedingly hazardous, labyrinth.

Despite these dangers, both sides allegedly maintain listening posts well inside the DMZ and conduct
regular patrols.

Emerging on the northern side, we saw our first North Korean. He was a soldier standing guard alone
at the entry gate. Armed only with a pistol, he was dressed in the standard North Korean uniform of
brown woolen tunic and trousers, Sam Browne belt, and a peaked cap that appeared unusually
large for his head.

The omnipresent Kim Il-sung badge pinned to his breast and the red tabs on his jacket collar left us in
little doubt that we were now well and truly in the north. I noticed that he was quite thin and that his
uniform was ill-fitting for his stature.

The northern side of the DMZ is completed denuded, and has the appearance of some weird
science fiction movie set.

Just babies . . .

Shortly after crossing the border, we emerged into a valley and approached a group of very impermanent-looking structures beside a railway line, which was still under construction and currently going nowhere.
These buildings serve as the North Korean immigration post.

They consist of large, white plastic tents with paved floors, attached to equally new-looking prefabricated buildings. Portable toilets are located outside beside the railway line. The exterior is watched by three
soldiers, dressed in identical fashion to the earlier border guard, except with the addition of red flags in
their hands and whistles.

Two guards were located in a guard box outside the tent, while a third, who looked impossibly young to be
in the army, stood above on the railway embankment overlooking the whole area. We were later informed
that North Koreans begin military service at 15 years old and several of the soldiers we passed looked like middle school students.

The guards constantly stand at attention, never showing any form of emotion or ever speaking a word, and
they only interrupt their stoic silence to blow their whistles furiously and aggressively wave their semaphore-sized red flags at any transgressor that has accidentally strayed across the boundary line around the post.

Everything about their body language appears calculated to deter any form of friendly advance, and they
do not respond to communication of any kind, moving only their eyes left and right to survey the scene,
while their heads remain rigid. I never heard a guard utter a word, either coming or going across the border.

If they have to move from their post, they do so in a stiff fashion that approaches parade ground marching,
with legs unbending and only their forearms swinging from the elbow.

Won't You Cross the Line Today?

After we got out of the bus, we gathered in tents and formed into our respective groups in front of one of
the several immigration desks manned by uniformed staff.

Here I saw my first North Korean woman, again, in uniform and wearing the standard oversized peak
cap. The immigration staff uniform was different from the guards, though still fairly austere in comparison
to the south, consisting of a loose-fitting, unbelted shirt with the North Korean regalia, and, of course the
Kim-Il-sung badge.

After about a twenty-minute wait, while the North Koreans sat at their desks, and various officials moved about behind the scenes, processing began. However, this was brought to an abrupt halt almost as soon as
it started.

With no further explanation, we were instructed to wait. Some people returned to the buses but I preferred
to sit outside the tents, welcoming the opportunity to take in the surroundings.

We were in a relatively tight, flat-bottomed valley, surrounded by low rocky hills with sparse vegetation.
The approach road was fenced on both sides, but as it was made of wire, I could see a farmer going
about his business in a field at the foot of the hills on the opposite side of the valley from the tents.

Further down the road lay a couple of unfinished concrete buildings, three or four storeys high, which presumably will become a more permanent immigration post in the future. A handful of military labourers
could be seen working at a very sedate pace as a single crane sat idle beside them.

No weapons were visible in the valley except for the guards' holstered pistols. However, I could see a
military camp down the road at the mouth of a tight valley that branched off from the one we were in. As soldiers were constantly moving about, and jeeps occasionally emerged from the dirt road leading into it,
I suspected it concealed a far larger military presence.

It was an odd experience for me, as I was the only foreigner amongst about 1000 Korean tourists.
The guards were definitely eyeing me with suspicion, though as far as I was aware, I didn't subsequently
receive any special treatment.

However, one very bizarre thing did occur as we waited.

War Games

I noticed the screens on the immigration officials' computers appeared old and featured a black background with white lettering. I commented on this to Young-hae, but no sooner had I spoken than the screen operated by the guard in front of us burst into a colourful shade of bright blue.

At first I thought it was simply a screensaver featuring blue sky and clouds, but as I watched, an American Blackhawk helicopter appeared on the screen hovering amongst the clouds over a landscape that I noticed
was almost identical to that which we currently found ourselves in.

No sooner had it appeared than a string of tracers struck it, causing it to burst spectacularly into flames and crash. I then realized the guard was playing some sort of combat video game; as he went on to destroy a convoy of approaching trucks and tanks, and still further helicopters.

It struck me as no coincidence that his screen was turned to face the assembled tourists.

Intrigued by his actions, I moved up behind him to observe exactly what was happening. The screen flashed "Game Over" in English and reverted to the black-and-white tables of names and numbers that had originally drawn my attention.

The guard casually looked over his shoulder, but appeared startled to see I was standing less than a metre away observing him. He immediately restarted the game and continued to destroy anything that moved on
the screen.

Endless Waiting

Finally, after a three-hour wait, a Hyundai-manufactured South Korean jeep with tinted windows approached from the north. A North Korean officer alighted, further discussions took place, and finally about a half hour later--three-and-a-half hours after we arrived--we began to move slowly through immigration.

When it was my turn, I handed the official my passport, half expecting him to notice that it was from New Zealand, while my travel documents clearly stated I was Australian. No such concerns were necessary however. Although he held my documentation up beside my passport for closer scrutiny, the obvious contradiction appeared to escape him and he waved me through, though not before curtly refusing to place
a North Korean stamp in my passport.

I passed through a German-manufactured metal detector without incident and was then officially in
North Korea.

We again boarded the buses and set out on the short drive to the Gumgang-san resort area in a convoy,
with North Korean government political cadres in civilian clothes driving jeeps at the front and rear.

The Gumgang-san complex was constructed entirely by Hyundai and the price they pay to do so is obvious.

Hyundai rules

Except for the military jeeps and trucks we occasionally saw, which were of Chinese manufacture and
of poor quality, almost all the cars, SUVs, trucks and diggers in the area are made either by Hyundai,
or its subsidiary, KIA.

The only exception I saw was a solitary late-model Caterpillar bulldozer, looking rather incongruous in its unfamiliar surroundings.

Hyundai built the resort, runs it, and is currently working on the railway that will one day bring tourists
directly to the tourism zone by train.

Hyundai is also currently constructing a complex where northern and southern families divided by the war
can meet.

Hyundai Oil Bank supplies all fuel, as the storage tanks bearing their logo, and the tanker we passed
en route clearly attested. In exchange for what must be considerable cash payments for the operating
rights, Hyundai has a total monopoly, and will be well placed for the multi-billion dollar development
explosion that will doubtless accompany reunification when it happens.

Rural Beauty

The area behind the DMZ is almost totally rural, with the obvious exception of the military bases.
The first thing that struck me as we approached the resort was the lack of vehicles and pollution.

The sky had now cleared, and was a perfect cloudless blue. The rivers we crossed flowed clear and clean.
To see this in South Korea is unusual, and only in the remote mountain areas away from the intense urban development do you get an opportunity to see Korea as it must once have been--clean and truly beautiful.

Conversely, in the area of the north we visited, the lack of rampant industrialization means that the traditional bucolic agrarian lifestyle remains intact. While this may well be a crafted illusion, which may not be replicated
in other areas of the north, it is true around Gumgang-san.

I saw farmers working in the fields and crops grew in every field, though the reported lack of fertilizer
appeared to ensure the crops of corn, beans, chilies and rice were less bountiful than those south of the
DMZ. I was surprised to see the rice had already begun to turn the shade of golden yellow that indicates
the approach of the harvest. In the southern areas of Korea, this doesn't happen until early October.

Tradition!

Almost everything seemed to be done by hand. I didn't see a single tractor, and the workers we passed
were making building blocks using hand molds. We passed two soldiers stripped off for work, carrying a wooden stretcher-like device heaped with dirt instead of using a wheelbarrow, and also a farmer using an
ox to pull his antiquated cart.

Houses were scattered and the villages we passed had low concrete walls to keep out prying eyes. Despite this, I could see that the streets in the farming villages were unpaved and that the housing was a mixture of the traditional Korean design that is becoming less common in the south, and fairly old looking,but identically designed cottages, which I assumed were the result of a government housing project in the past.

Looking for Kim Il-sung

Our first stop was at a shopping complex run by Hyundai in the resort.

Although North Koreans do work at the resort, there are also South Korean Hyundai employees and, surprisingly, Chinese workers imported to fill some positions.

I was a little disappointed to find an almost total absence of political items for sale, and an equal lack of the images of Kim Il-sung that I understand are hallmarks of other North Korean place. Although we passed a couple of political billboards on the bus, taking photos was forbidden as we were moving, and lone young North Korean soldiers were spaced along our route watching to make sure the rule was enforced.

A soldier stood alone in the middle of every road branching off our path. I wondered whether the soldier
stood there until he was relieved, or only until we passed by. If the former is true, it must be a cushy, though slightly tedious, task.

The resort shop was very large, but its wares were mostly limited to tourist junk. I bought a few Gumgang-san badges for my South Korean students, a few postcards and a couple of books of stamps. The anti-American postal styles I have heard are available in Pyongyang were absent. The only vaguely political things I found were some commemorative coins minted in aluminum, marking such notable events as the Kumgang 2 Injection, which the coin's inscription informs you in English "greatly promotes human health".

Ain't No Mountain

Our first excursion (we had no choice in this respect, as organized trips are the only option) was to climb a portion of Gumgang-san.

This mountain is extremely beautiful and is rightly recognized by Koreans in both the north and south as
a national treasure. Following a path expertly crafted in flagstones, we climbed to about 1000 metres
(the summit is slightly more than 1700m).

Along the way, we passed North Korean political cadres, dressed in casual sports clothes though of course, always sporting the party badge.

Although undoubtedly handpicked for the job, they were nonetheless civil and friendly. The women were all attractive, though they constantly had a male companion who was far less talkative than the women. Their clothes were very different from the workers we had seen in the fields and several of the guys were wearing tinted fashionable glasses.

No badges for sale

When we spoke to one pleasant girl, who was intrigued about where I came from, we got an insight into
their thinking.

I asked if I could take a photo of her badge, which she politely refused, saying photos of North Koreans
were forbidden. When Young-hae asked (on my behalf) if it were possible to buy one of the badges, she seemed genuinely puzzled by the request until she realized I was serious.

She then informed us, quite curtly, though I later thought not unreasonably, that the badge was not some souvenir to be bought and sold, and to do so was absolutely impossible.

The badge was the embodiment of the Great Leader, and was always worn so that he would constantly be
with the wearer. The words of Kim Il-sung are literally carved in stone in North Korea, and the rocks of Gumgang-san feature numerous passages of things he said.

Some of these are quite trivial comments he made about a particular part of the trail, though they are still deemed worthy of being immortalized in stone. It is a slightly bizarre concept to a westerner, though less so
to a Korean I think, as carving in rocks is relatively common in the south, though usually its content is
Buddhist rather than political. Having said that, I guess Mount Rushmore in the States is undeniably political, and the Romans were masters of political sculpture.

No pointing (or spitting either)

Stopping in front of one carved passage high on the mountain, I was reading the characters and paused to
ask Young-hae about its meaning.

I made the mistake of pointing with my finger to the letters above us on the cliff face and was quickly told
my the omnipresent political cadre selling North Korean fans on a little table beside us, that to point at
Kim Il-sung is strictly forbidden, as is uttering his name without adding his military title as defender of the
nation or "Dear Leader".

I later commented to Young-hae that it must be strange to live in a country where an individual is elevated to the status of a god,and she correctly observed that he is much more than a god as God doesn't control every aspect of your life, whereas Kim Il-sung did (and still does).

After climbing up the mountain to look down from the top of a spectacular waterfall, we descended again for lunch at a beautiful lodge restaurant built beside the mountain river.

Again, I was surprised by the absence of Kim Il-sung's picture.

The food was delicious and was served by beautiful, young North Korean women, again presumably specially selected for the job. Although very smartly dressed in matching uniforms, they were all wearing the kind of stout, sensible footwear my grandmother favoured, suitable for either a lengthy walk or kicking the dog.

Back on the bus, I noticed that the North Koreans also have concrete blocks on their bridges, poised to be dropped to block the roads. It struck me that if war broke out and both sides dropped their blocks, at least
for a time, their respective land forces couldn't get to each other and they could call it quits. Unlikely, I know.

I noticed several large artillery pieces camouflaged under awnings on one hillside, and three trucks with
rocket launchers mounted on them, parked under cover on another hillside. There were no roads leading to them and they appeared to just be parked up in fields with crops growing on all sides. To get them mobile would have involved considerable effort, and I wondered whether they were actually past the motion stage
of their usefulness and were simply being employed as static rocket launching positions.

I was continually aware that anything we could see was intended that way. Clearly, little was accidental in the landscape.

Luxury Digs

We spent the night at the palatial hotel built by Hyundai. Our room was undeniably the best hotel room
I have stayed in. It was very large and spotlessly clean with beautiful views out across the valley and up
toward the mountains.

As I looked out at the idyllic landscape bathed in the light of a full moon, it occurred to me that the most threatening thing I had encountered on the trip was the Hyundai hotel bidet, which featured a seat that rather unnervingly opened automatically as you approached, and then silently closed again as you passed by.

On our final day, we were taken (again by bus convoy) to a beautiful beach on the coast. Its pristine waters were a welcome change from the polluted beaches Young-hae and I occasionally visit for picnics around
Gupo in the south, where there are copious quantities of polystyrene, plastic and broken glass. We have barbeques at one of the less polluted beaches, but every time we go there I can fill a sizeable plastic bag
with trash in a few minutes.

I think it's very sad that that this appears to be the price of industrialization, though I personally think if people were more environmentally conscious the problem could be greatly reduced.

After leaving the beach, we went for a walk around a lake, stopping to buy some North Korean stuff en route. I couldn't resist the "Hangover Chaser Tea: Natural Hangover-chaser and Liver Booster" and bought a couple of packs as souvenirs. The information on the label tells the purchaser that "By activating the alcohol-dissoving [sic] ferments, it reduces drunkeness after boozing and chases hangover, head ache, dizziness, stomach heaviness, vomiting, lack of appetite and smell in the mouth."

All that for $6! A bargain!

A Safe Return

Finally, we returned to a nice restaurant a delicious dish of naemeon, once again served by a bevy of
North Korean beauties. The restaurant had large windows that open to allow the clean mountain air to circulate through the room and to give an uninterrupted view of the spectacular landscape.

In the afternoon we set out again on the return trip, which proved uneventful, as we crossed the border
again at 5:30 and then drove for seven and a half hours to finally return to Changwon in the early hours of
the morning.

I had one nervous moment as we left North Korea: the immigration official examined my passport and documentation again, this time looking at me and asking "Australian?", presumably to ascertain that I hadn't changed my nationality in the previous 24 hours. I assured him I was as Australian as shrimp on the barbie.
I exited without further trouble.

All in all, I have to say it was quite possibly the best holiday I have had, and I only regret I couldn't spend
more time there to form a more balanced opinion of the country. Having had the opportunity to speak
briefly to a few North Koreans, I am even more convinced that North Korea has no more desire for war
than the south and that one day these two nations will once again be one.