Episode Thirteen-Wing-It Worldwide-North Korea

One of the great ironies in the world of adventure travel (and there are many) is how easy it actually is to travel to the DPRK [UPDATE: US citizens like us are no longer allowed to go]. All you really need to do is contact one of the tour providers (we chose Young Pioneer Tours) who has an “in” with the North Koreans, and they’ll take care of everything.

That doesn’t make going there any less surreal or exhilarating. The DPRK is replete with the expected weirdness, like a balancing gun act in their national circus, dog meat soup and a calendar set to the year 105…the number of years since Kim Il Sung’s birth.

But there are also fascinating surprises around every corner that you’d never expect. You can eat ice cream and pizza after fun times in Pyongyang’s state-of-the-art “Fun Park” amusement park. And the craft beer is actually very, very tasty.

While being virtually cut off from the rest of the world results in a lack of freedom and conveniences that we take for granted elsewhere, there’s an unmistakable naive innocence to life there.
With no Internet access as we know it, no commercial anything and limited television or cinema options, that leaves dancing. LOTS of dancing…all to simple folk tunes about happiness, love of country and–of course–the Great Leader.

You can dance away a warm Sunday afternoon in April with locals in Pyongyang’s version of Central Park. College girls wear brightly colored dresses that would be over-the-top in any Western culture, and join the boys for “mass dancing” in the parking lot. Big smiles are all around, and you’re even invited to join them.

None of that changed how much I yearned to give everyone I saw a turn on my iPod and let them listen to AC/DC.