After a five-year hiatus, tourists were allowed back into North Korea last week.
And the first Brit tourists to go back into Kim Jong-un's secretive country have shared the shocking things they saw.
When the pandemic broke out in 2020, North Korea shut up its borders as tour companies have been halted from starting up operations since – reportedly with a number of false starts.
But the moment Rowan Beard of Young Pioneer Tours got the green light to finally go again, he pulled together a group of travellers within five hours.
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Including many vloggers, tourists from Australia, France, Germany and the UK, the group drove over the border from China last Thursday (20 February) as they embarked on a four-night trip.
And despite all we do know about North Korea, it seems some were still taken aback by the level of control.
YouTuber Mike O’Kennedy was one of the Brits on the trip who likened it to ‘being on a school trip’.
“Everyone was working, it didn't feel like anyone was just hanging out. That was kind of bleak to see,” he told the BBC.
When visiting a school, he watched as eight-year-olds performed a dance while a video of ballistic missiles hit targets behind them.
With many songs praising the leader, O'Kennedy said in his video that one of the clearest things he saw on the trip is 'the utter devotion people had towards Kim Jong-un'.
Joe Smith has now visited North Korea three times, but said: “I feel like the more times you visit the less you know. Each time you get a little peek behind the curtain, which just leaves you with more questions.”
His favourite part was getting to go to a luxury goods market where the tourists weren’t allowed to take any snaps.
Saying it was the ‘only place’ where the people there ‘weren’t expecting’ the visitors, he added: “It felt messy and real; a place North Koreans actually go. I loved it.”
Smith added that the hotel room he was put up in was filthy and particularly old-fashioned, resembling ‘his grandma’s living room’.
Describing the roads as ‘awful’ and buildings ‘weirdly constructed’, he said: “They've had five years to fix things. North Koreans are so sensitive about what they show tourists.
“If this is the best they can show, I dread to think what else is out there.”
Speaking to the Mirror, German content creator Luca Pferdmenges said poverty was pretty clear but they weren’t allowed to take photos of it.
“It's quite a poor country overall, especially the countryside, and you do see it. It's not like they shut the curtain — you do get the exposed to a lot of poverty,” he explained.
But Pferdmenges also claimed ‘alcohol is quite a big thing in North Korea’ as he found it ‘surprisingly cheap’.
“They have soju, they have rice wine, they have lots of different things and even when you have dinner, you don't get water by default, you get beer. So it's really in the culture,” he added.
Topics: Travel, Politics, Kim Jong-un
Jess Battison