Unlike the diaries of my previous travels, the North Korea Journal was not easy to keep. I was in a country which tightly controlled all information and deliberately distanced itself from the rest of the world. I had to be careful when and where I got the notebook out. If I was writing too openly they might want to read what I was saying about the country. Worse still, they might want to confiscate it.
But North Korea was not as fierce as I expected. I didn’t flaunt my notebook, they didn’t ask to see it. I was able to keep a pretty full account of my time in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The North Korea Journal is a record of two of the most unusual weeks I’ve ever spent abroad.
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Photos
Sculpture portraying the economic blessings of the Kim dynasty. Note woman carrying a television.
The colossal Reunification Arch over the Reunification Highway outside Pyongyang.
Massive procession of the North Korean people in a sculpture on Mansudae Hill.
May Day public holiday. Picnics in the park.
Poster near the Demilitarised Zone salutes 'One Korea!'.
With Mrs Kim Hyang Li, farmer, on my 75th birthday .
In Kaesong, one of the tiny number of old buidings to have survived the bombing of the DPRK in the 1950’s.
Wonsan, early morning. Women dance to patriotic music to encourage the workforce.
Trekking in the Mount Kumgang National Park.
Heroic memorial to Kim Jong Il, his wife and son, in the days when they fought the Japanese invaders.
Mount Paektu, the sacred mountain, is never very far away.