Road to North Korea - Get on the Bus
It takes a lot of buses to do the tourism thing in North Korea. We were headed to Kumgang Mountain resort in North Korea, one of the few places foreigners can get in and out of North Korea with ease.
The resort was set up by the Hyundai Asan company, a subsidiary of the carmaker, back in 2005. It is in south eastern North Korea set in an area of the spiritual importance for Koreans. The company paid $1 billion for 50 years of exclusive rights to develop the area and spent $400 million building it. So far 1.4 million people, mostly South Koreans and South Korean expatriots have visited it in the two years it has been open. The resort breaks even now but they haven't recouped the investment yet. You wanna bet Hyundai is banking on unification?
We spent the night at a hotel on the South Korean side of the border. The hotel was set on the shore which is fortified with a fence and patrolled by South Korean army.
The next morning, we started our day at a bus stop in Yongpyong, South Korea. After breakfast, we picked up our visas. We had submitted the information weeks before and the visas included our name and pictures, information about us (and the media outlets we worked for). Interestingly, our visas were different in color from the other South Korean tourists. The two Korean-American journalists with us had different color visas too.
We also had to submit information on our cameras - type, serial number, lens power. The first hint this wasn't a trip to Disneyland.
After boarding a different bus we headed to the border where we needed to go through South Korean customs and immigration.
There was some duty free shopping and information on various things, like malaria warnings, as we waited the next move. Across the way from the immigration stop was a railway station. The Hyundai corporation had built the station, and railroads, to North Korea but on the day the South Koreans were going to send the first train, the North Korean government changed its mind and refused to let it enter the country. Fickle fickle fickle.
Then we headed through immigration, and boarded another bus. We were off to North Korea.
The resort was set up by the Hyundai Asan company, a subsidiary of the carmaker, back in 2005. It is in south eastern North Korea set in an area of the spiritual importance for Koreans. The company paid $1 billion for 50 years of exclusive rights to develop the area and spent $400 million building it. So far 1.4 million people, mostly South Koreans and South Korean expatriots have visited it in the two years it has been open. The resort breaks even now but they haven't recouped the investment yet. You wanna bet Hyundai is banking on unification?
We spent the night at a hotel on the South Korean side of the border. The hotel was set on the shore which is fortified with a fence and patrolled by South Korean army.
The next morning, we started our day at a bus stop in Yongpyong, South Korea. After breakfast, we picked up our visas. We had submitted the information weeks before and the visas included our name and pictures, information about us (and the media outlets we worked for). Interestingly, our visas were different in color from the other South Korean tourists. The two Korean-American journalists with us had different color visas too.
We also had to submit information on our cameras - type, serial number, lens power. The first hint this wasn't a trip to Disneyland.
After boarding a different bus we headed to the border where we needed to go through South Korean customs and immigration.
There was some duty free shopping and information on various things, like malaria warnings, as we waited the next move. Across the way from the immigration stop was a railway station. The Hyundai corporation had built the station, and railroads, to North Korea but on the day the South Koreans were going to send the first train, the North Korean government changed its mind and refused to let it enter the country. Fickle fickle fickle.
Then we headed through immigration, and boarded another bus. We were off to North Korea.
posted by ThatsAllFolks at 5:56 PM
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