Entering the country

It is now possible to enter the country from Hamyong, Rason, or visit Chongjin, and Chilbo, then take a charter flight to Pyongyang

Exciting the country

It is now possible to have a standard DPRK Tour (Pyongyang etc), charter flight to Mt Chilbo, and exit via Hamhyong, or most excitingly through the Rason SeZ.

This great news as it will mean we no longer have to exit via China, and most importantly no longer require triple, or even quadruple Chinese visas, with a double entry visa being sufficient.

We are still waiting for exact prices of the charter flight, which after we receive will start planning itineraries accordingly. This is something we have been pushing for for quite some time, and are extremely excited about.

YPT always being up for new DPRK adventures and routes are anxiously awaiting news on if foreigners will be allowed on the next cruise which will ideally be leaving at the end of June. Should this happen, we will certainly be selling places.

For more details about the cruise, such as timetables. please follow the following link.

Visitors require a valid passport of at least 6 month, and need to apply for a travel permit which will take 4 days to process.

Currently citizens of the USA, and Republic of Korea cannot join the tours.

The tours are restricted to days at present, but will be extended to overnight when CITS finish the new hotel in August.

YPT plan to run group trips every Sunday, as well as offering the ability to do independent trips throughout the week. We are also working on having Sinuiju as standalone extension for those people returning from a “mainland” DPRK tour, amongst other things.

We will be running a tester trip on May 26th, as well as meeting our partners for further negotiations. We aim to have more up to date news as soon as possible.

We also heard only a couple of days before that we wouldn’t be able to go from Chongjin to Rason on this trip as the Koreans had not been able to get the permission in time, so we had to make a few changes. In the end though our partners at Chilbosan Travel Company were amazing and made sure we were always entertained.

Day 1

I was fortunate enough to be back in North Hamgyong leading the first Western tour group to cross the Tumen-Namyang border and see the cities of Hoeryong and Onsong, on April 24th-29th. There were 12 of us pioneering the way and we definitely had our fair share of crazy events. First we were followed everywhere in Tumen by guys from the PSB which is like internal security, and they kept warning us that it was dangerous for us to go outside in Tumen at night because the locals like to drink and fight a lot. He also had some trouble believing we were actually going to North Korea so asked a lot of questions such as whether we were invited etc.

In the end all was well and they showed up the next morning to watch us cross the border. Chinese customs took some time as they wanted all our names and nationalities and also took a lot of photos of us going through customs and walking onto the bridge. After walking the long bridge our passports were checked by a soldier at the gate and we met our guides Mr So and Ri outside the customs building. Customs was a much easier affair than when I went in November 2012 as they had installed a scanner- so we had to simply declare all our electronics and then get our bags scanned.

Finally we hit the road and were a fair way along when we came across a broken truck that had made the road impassable. So we got out and threw a football around in a yard in the miner’s village we had stopped in. After a while we started throwing it to some of the local village children. Our guides seemed to have no problem with it so it carried on for nearly an hour playing with them, and it was a really memorable experience. Finally they decided we had no choice but to take a detour, so we drove back around to Namyang then towards the East Sea before swinging back around to Hoeryong. So we were lucky enough to be the first tourists of any kind to take that road, even Chinese tourists haven’t yet and our driver constantly had to ask for directions. They also went and brought some local street food for us as we were well past lunchtime by this point.

The downside of this of course was the time we lost- we ended up having to have dinner in Hoeryong at around 8.30 then finally arrived in Chongjin at 11pm where we went to the seaman’s club for a quick bath, then some of us stayed to enjoy the club while those who were too tired went to the hotel to sleep. Rowan made friends with the manager over his iPad, while Joe, Mark, Ri and I chatted with the waitresses and showed them some pictures etc. It was an interesting start to what would prove to be an extremely interesting trip.

Day 2

We woke up at 8, though I had to get up earlier to meet Mr Koh, the manager of the Chilbosan travel company for a quick chat. After breakfast we headed out to see the statue of President Kim Il Sung in the central square and the E-Library nearby. It was Military Foundation day, so all the kids had the day off and a mass of Children followed us around the area giving us hi-fives and waves, it was such an amazing welcome and they were so happy to see us. Joseph took some amazing pictures and we all felt like genuine rock stars.

After the E-Library we went to see the model plan for the future development of Chongjin- a scale model showing the intended renovations and new constructions to develop the city. It’s next door to the E-Library, so e got to see all the children again and it was almost impossible to squeeze through and onto the bus, not that any one was in a rush to do so. After that we had to head down to Mt Chilbo (we returned to Chongjin later anyway). The drive to Chilbo was fairly uneventful but as always provided some amazing village views and we even saw a few local markets from the bus.

We stopped at the mineral painting showing the area- the largest of it’s kind in the world apparently, and received an explanation of the area. This is also the only place where you can take photos from the bus while it’s moving which is nice. We then ate lunch at the Outer Chilbo hotel- the manager of which also cooks all the food himself and is a rather famous chef in the area, he was also kind enough to take the time to meet me before we left the area.

After lunch we took a tour of some scenic spots and walks in Inner Chilbo and the Kaesim Buddhist Temple, where we were told that Mt. Chilbo rewards those with good hearts by providing good weather, but for those with wicked hearts the weather will turn bad. We then spent the night in the Outer Chilbo hotel, where we had a long dinner and sang with the hotel’s waitresses then spent the night drinking and talking with them and the Korean guides.

Day 3

In the morning after breakfast we set off for a long hike 8.5 kilometres to Gangsonmun area- unfortunately the path was still covered in deep snow in places and then it began to rain and finally snow. It seems at least one of us had a wicked heart, so we were punished by the mountain had to go back, of course as soon as we went back a far enough distance it became sunny again.

After our hike, we ate lunch by a river- picnic lunch we had brought with us and some spicy fish soup that the Koreans cooked up for us. After that it was time to visit the homestay village, which i’d been restless for all day.

We arrived at the village and had a look around, then we played volleyball with the locals- we ended up with two teams of 3 foreigners and 3 Koreans with some rotating subs. Each team even had their own cheer groups which was awesome. After that we had some snacks and drinks with the village chief then a party round a bonfire on the beach with the local people. After that the Americans in our group were driven back to the Outer Chilbo hotel where they had a small party and a great chat with Mr Ri. The rest of us went to our respective homestays and talked to the occupants, shared photo albums and finally went to sleep.

Day 4

We woke up early to do some light farming work which turned out to be very light indeed. Rowan and I planted a few seeds in a very, very small area that they asked us to plow. Some people helped sweep the yard and one guy weeded a strawberry patch for a short while. After that we had a stroll around the village area and then breakfast. When the US citizens returned from the Outer Chilbo hotel we went out for a boat ride along the coastline in some old wooden boats.

After the boating it was time for another hike up to Manulsang to enjoy the view and a visit to the famous Ponji spring to sample the water. We had lunch at the hotel in Outer Chilbe before departing for Kyongsong, stopping at the Yongbun revolutionary site along the coastline on the way.

After our arrival in Gyongsong we went to see the local revolutionary site where Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Suk had stayed in the past. Originally owned by a winemaker it was the largest home in the area at the time. Following that we went to a local spa house to bathe which was great after two nights without running hot water. (Though in Outer Chilbo, the hotel did provide us with a bucket of hot water each). After the baths I saw some locals hitting badminton shuttle cocks back and forth so I asked if we could play with them and our guides said no problem, so we joined them to play, which was another unexpected, yet pleasant surprise.

After that it was back to the Gyongsong hotel for dinner and another party with the waitresses of the hotel. I was also able to get the guides to send someone out to the local shops to get us Swallow beer (another type of beer not found in tourist shops and restaurants) and Craven A cigarettes (Also not usually available for tourists), so again I was surprised at how amenable they were.

Day 5

In the morning we went to the Jipsam revolutionary site while on the way to Chongjin and finally returned to Chongjin where we visited the Chonsam region kindergarten and enjoyed a children’s performance. After that we went to the Seaman’s club for lunch where I was joined by Manager Koh who had brought Paeksul for us. Paeksul is one of the DPRK’s top liquors (It’s 30% alcohol and is made only from Pears), so it was a very pleasant surprise. I had to leave the others to enjoy lucnh while I ate with the Koreans and discussed business for a while and we had some very exciting discussions, so the future for tourism up there looks very bright.

After lunch we shopped in the seaman’s club shop then drove by the port to have a look. Finally it was time to leave Chongjin and we drove off to Hyeryong city, where we were the first group of Western Tourists ever. Upon our arrival we paid our respects to Kim Jong Suk’s statue and then took photos of the central square area. After that we walked over the hill to see the house where she was born and then we visited the Hyeryong Revolutionary Museum before checking in at the hotel.

As always that night it was time for singing and dancing with the waitresses and her Hyeryong was the clear winner. Everyone had a good time, and I think the Koreans really enjoyed the chance to get to know some foreigners too, as they had only met Chinese before (and me in November of course).

Day 6

As always we had breakfast in the hotel before going to visit the Kim Ki Song middle school. We were the first tourists ever to visit the school, and they had opened it according to my requests in November so it was very good to see them come through. We saw several classrooms of the school, but the highlight was having the opportunity to speak with the English class, though with nerves, never having spoken with a foreigner before, unfamiliar accents etc it was quite a challenge but a worthy one none the less. Unfortunately the Teacher’s college and the Maternity hospital have not yet decided to allow us or not, so we will see in the future if those will be available or not.

After that we drove to Onsong County, another first for a Western Tour group. We visited the Grand Monument at Wangjaesan which is perhaps the most impressive monument i’ve ever seen in the country. After that we toured the Wangjaesan revolutionary museum at the base of the hill, before going to the Wangjaesan hotel for lunch.

Lastly it was time for customs, we had a customs man come on the bus to check photos to help speed up the customs wait, but it still took a fair while, though the scanners really helped! We then said farewell to our guides before crossing the bridge to return to China. Chinese customs all seemed very happy to see us and our police friend was there again. The customs took a pretty long time here too, but finally we left and headed by bus to Yanji.

It was a great trip and has a lot of potential for the future and our partners up there seem very committed to helping us to access as much as we can. For returners or people who want to see a more representative area of the DPRK I would definitely recommend it. As one of our group members said, the bus rides were almost a tour within a tour, as we could see a lot of authentic villages, markets etc up there. Of course photography off the bus is not allowed (except within Mt Chilbo region.) I’m definitely looking forward to the next one!

Troy Collings

T shirts go to – Josh Ibrahim, Chris Dejonge, Jan Planck, Neil Carson, Brian Henry

10 % off our December Antarctica/Eurasian Tour goes to – Sandy Callahan,

25 % off any tour goes to – Ben Sharp

50 % off our 2013 October Iran Tour – Sebastian Holzwarth

50 % off the 2013 DPRK Tour of your choice – Victoria Austin

Free trip to the DPRK on the 2013 tour of your choice (train in and out short tour) – Robert Macdomhnail

A sincere thank you to all who entered. We will be doing a similar competition next year.

WINNERS. Contact us now – tours@youngpioneertours.com and claim your prize!

Thanks again to all involved

Farming and all things agricultural is a way of life for the majority of North Koreans. Manual labour is necessary as there are only occasional tractors doing the ploughing and some heavy work, and back up is provided by oxen which pull carts and ploughs. Groups of people usually farm together, young and old, including children still in their school uniforms. Every inch of arable land is worked meticulously, from the roadsides to the bases of mountains including inside the DMZ! Rice, maize, buckwheat and potatoes are the major products. Vast expanses of land divided into fields only by embankments for irrigation control, stretch off into the distance with their distinctive ridges for potatoes and other crops.

Lots of trees are planted as well as crops.

Mid day traffic in central Pyongyang, DPR Korea. The dots on the street are for the soldiers during big parades.

DPR Korea’s own Peace Car is symbolised by two doves.

In Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea, with around 3.25 million residents, there are very few cars on the streets. One advantage of this obviously is that there is much less noise (and pollution) than most other similar-sized major cities. Sanctions make importing foreign cars extremely difficult. DPR Korea does assemble its own marque, The Peace Car, although most of the components come from China. The cars, buses and trucks that are driving around are said to be practically all state owned.

The deepest metro system in the world moves thousands of passengers each day through 17 elaborately decorated stations at a cost of 5 won (less than half a Euro cent) per person. The cost was decided by President Kim Il Sung, and he said it will remain the same until Korea is reunited as an independent country. Vintage looking street cars and buses are usually stuffed full of locals. Otherwise masses of people can be seen walking along the city streets as well as along the country roads. Even in the proverbial middle-of-nowhere lots of people are walking along, often across fields.

A Pyongyang trolley bus.

Boutique shopping isn’t the thing in the DPR Korea. There is no Via del Corso or Oxford Street where you can spend a few hundred Euro on a pair of jeans. Actually shops and businesses are more or less state owned, or state controlled at the least. Advertising and commercialism is virtually absent! The dress code among most of the adult men is green army style suits with gold coloured buttons. At times it’s not easy to differentiate between military and civilians. Numerous women wear the same outfits too. Other Korean men like to wear the type of grey and blue suits that the leaders, the Kim family, are associated with.

Restaurants and shops have basic signage, normally with the name and sometimes a basic neon symbol or picture of what is generally available. But no posters showing what’s new or what’s on sale. The only posters to be seen anywhere are colourful propaganda posters to motivate the masses. You won’t find any famous department stores, ‘big oil’ petrol stations or fast food chains.

The cities have high rise residential buildings like in any other country, and each village has its share of detached houses, but they are all, you guessed, state owned. Folks must apply to the local government to get a place to live. Only married couples can do so however as single people are not allowed their own home, and have to remain with their families. They pay no ‘rent’ though, and aren’t taxed.

North Korea has its problems, we know that. Most countries do. But there’s always a huge difference between ‘people’ and ‘government’. The personality of its current leader, just like his father before him, doesn’t reflect in the general public who only want a peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula without any foreign interference. Until then they will most likely work as hard as any culture on earth, and smile if they get a chance.

THINGS I DIDN’T SEE IN DPRK;

- Horses or donkeys! None. The poor old cow must pull the plough.
- Fences! The communal farms and the land are for everybody, but it’s the government’s too.
- Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Hyundai or Kia! Lots of Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz, yes. South Korean cars? Definitely not!!
- Garages or mechanic shops! They must be hidden in the tiny back streets or somewhere. I know Simca and Lada cars break down occasionally.
- Lazy people! No Sir. Everybody works. That’s how it is in North Korea, and loudspeakers are blaring at 6.00am to wake everybody up.
- All 17 Pyongyang Metro stations! We foreigners are only allowed to use five or six, I forget which.
- DPR Korea money! Not allowed for foreigners. Only Euro, dollar or Chinese cash but I did find a 1 Won coin (€0.001) at the ice rink. It was like finding €100.
- Advertisements! Except for one big ad for domestic Peace cars.
- Famous brand names or designer labels! Too expensive probably.
- JEANS! Nobody wears jeans. Nobody. I was told it’s not Korean style.
- Foreign sports team gear! Only DPRK sports clothes, no Manchester United or Barcelona shirts, and no basketball tops.
- Multinational corporations! They aren’t welcome and Washington can’t handle that.
- Homeless people! Everybody has a place to live.
- Camera shops! People in the DPRK generally hate being photographed.
- Women smoking! The ladies simply do not smoke. Men make up for it though and students aren’t allowed to smoke or drink.
- Internet cafes! Internet is just not available yet.
- A beard or a moustache (on a man)! Didn’t see any at all. Not one.
- Skateboards! But lots and lots of kids on roller blades, and ice skates.
- Arrogance! People are modest, humble, shy, subservient. But then, I didn’t see Kim Jong Un.
- Kim Jong Un! Nowhere to be seen but he does exist apparently. He has been photographed.
- Anybody disrespecting Kim Jong Un or his family! It’s possibly the worst crime they have there.

THINGS I DID SEE IN DPRK;

- A cat! In a week and a half I saw one cat.
- Dog meat soup! Don’t waste your money. I only saw five or six dogs by the way.
- A machine for cleaning your shoes! Walk across this thing and it cleans the soles of your shoes.
- Portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il! Everywhere. Literally everywhere you look. Any place they visit gets a bronze statue or mosaic to commemorate the occasion.Photo: Photo:
- Kids in full replica military uniforms! It’s nothing unusual really in DPRK. Photo:
- Happy children! Smiles usually don’t lie, despite the hardships. Photo:
- Hot traffic ladies! Yep, they are real, and look good too in their blue uniforms and they know how to smile. Photo:
- A machine for covering your shoes! Step on this thing and it puts a little blue plastic cover over each shoe. Honestly.
- A broken down truck in the street! So me and this big Ukrainian started pushing it down the road for him, but it still wouldn’t start.
- The embalmed body of President Kim Il Sung! The mausoleum for him and his son is bigger than some countries I think. It is so over the top. Photo:
- Musical brilliance! Went to a performance by some of Pyongyang’s more gifted kids and it was absolutely phenomenal. Photo:

This post was written by C. McGrane who also runs the excellent MyDestinationTheWorld.

(original post courtesy of Gareth’s blog)

Our last day in Rason started pretty early as it was to encompass our slow stroll back to China, via 3 points pass, the place where China, Russia, and the DPRK traverse.

On this particular morning morning we were blessed with stunning weather, with people snaking last photos’s from the bus as much as possible on the way to 3 points. The pass is one of my favourite parts of Rason (more so now that you can get phone signal there), as well as being a border, which I love, it has a really eerie cold war feel to it. Obviously much calmer than the DMZ, but in many ways no less weird.

Getting back into China was actually alarmingly pain free, with only one of our group having his computer, or camera searched. Also for some reason DPRK customs now randomly sells Guinness. Everyone knows that Guinness is basically bread, and drinking it in the morning in no way implies alcoholism. Actually the only problem we had was at Chinese customs, with our Kenyan guy. Apparently in Kenya when your passport runs out they just extend it rather than give you a new one. Africa style is not understood in China.

Our bus was waiting for us for the 2 hour journey back to Yanji, where unsurprisingly no one said a single word to each other, each and all addicted to the 3g on their phones, and that wonderful feeling you get when back in the good old real world. After getting back to Yanji, we rolled up in our regular coffee house to kill time before our trip to Shenyang. 10 pm departure, 5 am arrival. A necessary evil if we were to be able to get back for our main flight on time. Theres an analogy I like in these situations about the astronauts, that on a flight to the moon shit goes wrong, but they are so far away from earth the only way back is to go around the moon and back. We used this analogy switched perfectly as our excuse to drink for most of the night…..

So at 5 am we departed for a 2 hour layover in Shenyang. A freezing hell hole in North-East China. I remember when I first got to China I had an almost religious hatred to McDonalds, feeling it was in the travelers code to never set foot in there. I’m over that now, McDonalds breakfast rocks.

Our transfer was due to the fact that Shenyang has a “fast” service to Beijing. China for those not in the know has a kind of dual track/service system with the fast trains working parallel to the slower trains. Generally they are modeled very much like planes, seating wise, trolleys going round, no smoking, and completely without character. Fucking boring to cut a long story short. Time was killed in the trains version of a bar, and running out at every stop to try and smoke in 30 seconds (I was good at that). On arrival we hit some lunch in Beijing, surfed the net before leaving for our “8.30” flight.

Beijing has 2 airports, Capital, and Nanyuan, with the later being an ex military airport located very centrally. We were delayed at the airport 5 hours. There is nothing to do in the airport, although we did manage to find a secret hidden restaurant with cheap beer that allowed smoking, alas 30 minutes before we actually flew.

I’m used to planning not just my own trips, but trips for hundreds of people, so it was quite pleasing that this time not only had I done cock all, but I had actually read fairly little on the place as well.

We arrived at 1.30 am to what can only be described as a colossal airport that looked like it was from the future, except it was empty, and we were the only flight. Not knowing where we were going, or what to do, we did the only thing available to us which was jump on the airport bus, which sticking with the theme was very modern, expensive, and largely empty.

Our drive to Ordos gave us a taste of what was to come, as we drove through what later turned out to be KangBaShi, the ghost town of our dreams, a massive, but largely unlit metropolis before being dropped in what looked like the arse pit of nowhere, with two closed hotels, a motorway and pseudo-nightclub. We found a taxi and asked him to take us to the nearest cheap hotel in Ordos. Ordos is supposed to be the live brother of these two sister towns, but again it was largely empty, without even much of a hint of life. We checked into the hotel (as the only guests), and despite it being 3 am decided to go on an explore, which resulted in us finding nothing open, but a convenience store, buying a beer, and then going home at 4.

Already without having seen anything this place was looking damn weird, and despite the prospect of only 4 hours sleep we were excited for the next part of the adventure….

Although this did not actually put the students in any explicit danger, few people seem to have an accurate picture of what North Korea is really like.

With conflicting articles containing fiction woven randomly into fact, and threats of missile launches, rising tensions and nuclear deterrents making themselves at home at the top of global headlines. Many people are looking to this latest high profile Panorama to give some clarity over what is really going on.

With high expectations comes a pressure to deliver. One that may drive people that return without a story to create one. For those about to come on tours or having been on tours, you will be in the best position to see.

Time will tell