Holiday in Hell: A guide for tourists in the world's most repressive nation
So, you got way too much money and time on your hands, and you can't stomach the thought of playing another round at Pebble Beach (yawn...). Whatever is the well-heeled dilettante to do? How about vacationing (if such is even possible) in the most repressive country on Earth?
It's safe to say that no country in the world is more dangerous or more shrouded in mystery than North Korea, but some people would like to see it all the same. And yet, until last month, North Korea was just about the only country in the world without a travel guide. (There hasn't been one to hell since Dante.) While only about 3,000 Westerners a year manage to finagle a visa into--and, more important, out of--North Korea, everyone would benefit from the new Bradt Travel Guide's chapters on the country's rich history and on the psychology of a government that makes Saddam Hussein's regime look enlightened.
The guide, written by British journalist Robert Willoughby, sometimes twists itself into knots to be judicious, but when it comes to politics Mr. Willoughby can be quite candid: "Remember that this guide is only useful in the country if it's allowed in, so what I haven't explicitly written about I've included [Internet] links to."....
Even with its pulled punches, the book does a mind-bending job of describing the personality cult that surrounds the late dictator Kim Il Sung ("the Great Leader") and his son and successor Kim Jong Il ("the Dear Leader"). The guide laconically notes that tourists will "be asked to 'pay respect' to statues and shrines" of the two men. "Just do it" is its terse advice. After all, this is a country where even the newspapers are folded in such a way as to avoid creasing the photos of the Leaders.
After a lengthy list of cultural do's and don't's the book settles down to the tourist sites, all of which must be visited with "minders" who robotically describe their glories. Mr. Willoughby quotes the North Koreans saying that Pyongyang, the capital, is "the political centre, the centre for culture and education and a wellspring of our revolution." But it's apparently dangerous to let guests too close to the wellspring. Most stay in a high-rise hotel on an island in the middle of a river where guards can easily block unsupervised access to the city. The guide calls the island "an Alcatraz of fun." It was once planned that visitors stay in the Ryugyong Hotel, a 105-story pyramid whose construction was halted when famine hit North Korea in the 1990s. Though brochures show it brilliantly lit up in night photos, it is still an empty shell that has never been wired for electricity.
For some odd reason, this actually appeals to me. I've always had a fascination with tyrannical regimes run by power-mad despots. I remember flying over Albania and wondering what life was like there. On a flight from Skopje, Macedonia to Zagreb, Croatia, we had a layover in Tirana, Albania. We were not allowed off the plane during our two hours on the ground, and one lone armed & dishevelled guard made certain we stayed put.
Serbia was also a trip. Belgrade during the heyday of Slobodan Milosevic was something akin to a trip down the rabbit hole. People either were convinced that I was an American spy working for Bill Clinton, or they fell over themselves trying to convince me that Serbs are not terrible, evil people. Being an American in a place where Americans clearly were not welcome was truly an exercise in the surreal.
Democracies may make for better and more effective political systems, but they sure can be boring to travel in.
