My North Korea Trip
黎景堂
2012年9月10日
North Korea tour is interesting, the following is a brief account of my North Korea tour for your information :
North
Korea Tour
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Ways to Visit North Korea from China
I think you can only go there by group through agent. You need to apply North Korea (NK) visa. Applying visa through China is cheaper than anywhere else including Hong Kong.
You can take Air Koryo (高麗航空) Flight from Shenyang (瀋陽) to Pyongyang (平壤) and return. This is the fastest way (1 ~ 2 hours) to NK.
You can also take train / coach from Dandong (丹東-China, the nearest city to NK) crossing Yalu river (鴨綠江) to Sinuiju (新義州-NK), the only point of in and out of NK through China. Then you take train from Sinuiju to Pyongyang. You may take 6 hours or more including waiting time in the train trip. This is the cheapest way to NK.
The way we choose from Hong Kong to NK is as follows:-
l Fly from Hong Kong to Shenyang (take 3 hours). Spend a few days tour in Shenyang;
l Take coach from Shenyang to Dandong. Spend a day in Dandong.
l Take train or coach to cross the Broken Bridge (斷橋-Yalu river) from Dandong to Sinuiju (NK), the only point of in and out of NK through China. Then you take the slow speed train from Sinuiju to Pyongyang (6 hours or more).
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Tourism
All tours are organized by the state-owned Korea International Travel Company (KITC) and tourism in North Korea is highly controlled by the government. Each tour has two tourist guides, one young beautiful girl / woman and one old man. You have no right to change the pre-planned visiting places. But NK has the right to change your visiting places.
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Photo Shooting Equipment
We were told that all DSLR cameras (digital camera with interchangeable lens) especially those with lens greater than 150mm are not allowed in NK. But it is not the case; you are only not allowed to bring in the lens with 150mm or more. Many visitors from China are equipped with the professional camera like Canon 5D MK2/3 (of course using the 24 ~ 105mm lens). I was misled by the tourist agent not to bring my DSLR camera.
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Photo Taking Restrictions
In generally, you can take any pictures except the military facilities and soldiers. You also cannot take pictures inside and outside (green field view) the train of the train during the train trip from Dandong to Sinuiju. Someone thinks there are military facilities under the green field.
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Transportation in the City
To my surprise, the train from Dandong to Sinuiju is electrified. The public buses in the city are also electrified.
There is underground mass transit railway in Pyongyang. But the underground mass transit railway system is four times deeper in the ground than that in Hong Kong. You can imagine how long and how steep of the escalator (one escalator from the upper ground to the train). I think they are afraid of being bombed and people can hide inside during war.
You will never have traffic jam in the city because only public buses, bicycles, trucks and tourist coaches running in the road. You can seldom see private cars on the road. It is exactly the same condition as China 30 ~ 40 years ago.
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City View
The city is very clean and no rubbish bin can be found. All citizens must wear the metal badge of their leaders. This metal badge is distributed by the government and nowhere you can buy it. You cannot take the photo of this metal badge.
All the buildings in the city are very modern. I am not sure if there are people inside. You seldom find a shop.
All the people are very gentle and you can see they are waving hands to you in the coach. You are strongly recommended not to talk with their people in order not to disturb their normal life (that is the reason they said).
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Food
The foods that they provide to us for lunch and dinner are in general good and very hygienic. Some of our tour members said the foods are better than that in South Korea. I also think so.
I think there are several types of restaurant for different level of tourists. As when we cross the border to NK, we saw a lot of tourists from China. But when we have lunch and dinner, I haven’t met them except the tourists from Singapore. You can even add foods at your own cost e.g.人蔘燉雞.
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Sightseeing
Originally, we could spend 4 days three nights in NK. But due to the tropical cyclone, China side immigration to NK was closed for 3 days. So we have reshuffled our itinerary to visit all the Shenyang scenery spots first and cut one day making 3 days two nights in NK to meet our schedule. We have condensed all the important scenery spots into almost one day. We only missed the 觀看學生文藝演出 and 西海水閘 which are not worth to visit.
The places that we have visited in NK are 板門店 (Panmunjom)、三八線、朝鮮戰爭停戰談判遺址、金日成主席的手跡碑 、高麗博物館、建黨紀念塔、平壤凱旋門、中朝友誼塔、平壤地鐵、紀念品商店、主題思想塔、阿里朗表演. Some of the places are only on-coach visit (車遊 i.e. you can only view them in the coach).
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Hotel
We lived in the 平壤 羊角島飯店 which locates in an island. Actually, all visitors are packed into this hotel. I think it is easier for the them to control. You are not allowed to go outside of this island or hotel alone. The breakfast buffet is not bad.
China - Shenyang Tour
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Shenyang
We have visited the張學良故居陳列館、羽毛畫專門店、瀋陽故宮博物院and 九一八歷史陳列館。
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Dandong
We have visited the乘船遊鴨綠江、錦江山公園、觀看斷橋 and 本溪水洞。