North Korea Chapter 2

After the drive to the border, there was a lot of "hurry up and wait". I suppose because of limitations on tourism, being that one can only visit while being part of an organized tour, all the tours must enter and be processed at the same time. There were about 25 tour buses along with my group's 2 that were entering the area at the same time. Although we got to the region early, we had to wait around for a few hours so that all could go through at one time. This was probably the most disorganized part of the trip. At one rest stop, we all fled to the store and the restaurant for food, but were ushered out because of time restrictions, but then sat on the bus waiting for another half an hour on a road or in a parking lot. This was not the fault of the tour company really. Well maybe a little. I just don't think that they are working with a lot of flexibility on the other end.

We finally made it to the South Korean departure centre. We left one bus, went through immigration/customs, and then onto another bus on the other side of the building. We weren't allowed to take any pictures from the bus as we went through the DMZ and over the border. This road followed the east coast of the peninsula and it was stunning scenery. A large barbed wire fence ran along both sides of the highway. There weren't really any buildings except for guard stations and one building used by the UN.

We crossed the military demarcation line, the line that was official drawn after the Korean war. We entered into the North Korean customs area. It was two large white tents connected by corridors between them. We all lined up according to a number that the tour company had assigned us. We had all received an ID package that had all our information in them, such as nationality, occupation, age, yada yada. Once we got through these line ups, we showed our papers to the North Korean officer that processed everything. We were warned before hand that we might be asked questions if there were any discrepancies in our information. These discrepancies would be no big deal to us. For example, I was born in Toronto, but my home address was in Vancouver. My friend Beth's home address was in Toronto but her passport was processed in Halifax. When I was questioned, he just verified where I lived and where I was born. He spoke in perfect English also, I might add.

When we were being given our ID packages, there was a line on our cards that said NATIONALITY / ETHNICITY. For me, it was Canadian / Canadian. For some reason, most of the people from the UK had United Kingdom / Nigeria. Not one of those people was Nigerian by any means. There wasn't even an explanation for a mix up, such as the name of a processing office or a region. When our guide was asked about it, he said "Don't worry, they don't know about Nigeria anyway." HUH?? We were all extra attentive to what was being told to us and what was going on, so I think that those people were a little nervous after hearing that one. Also during this time, when we were being given our IDs, our guide told us that if we didn't submit a employer's address or the name of a school that we worked at at the time of registration for the trip, he said that they had randomly chosen ones for us and that we should go with that story.

There were no problems going through customs for anyone however. The checked everyone's cameras to make sure that no one was exceeding the zoom lens limitation. Our bags went through scanners. The customs people were all soldiers and were as nice as can be (ha!). The went through the other side of the tent and back onto the bus. Guards lined the roads. They just stared at all the tourists coming in. Each one also carried a red flag and had a pin of Kim Jung-Il (from here on to be mentioned at Lil' Kim) or Kim Il-Sung (from hereon to be mentioned as Senior Kim).