Day 9: Traveling to North Korea

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There is a golf course, 11 restaurants, several gift shops and a pavilion that is home to a North Korean acrobatics show. A package deal, meaning three days and two nights, can cost more than $500 per person. But you have to do things the North Korean way: Lunch is scheduled at exactly 12:10 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., you have to be on the bus to tour a nearby lake. At 4:30 p.m., there is the 90-minute acrobatics show. Dinner is at 6 p.m. sharp. Our lake trip was in an 18-bus convoy led by the military. Once there, the pathways around the lake were clogged by tourists who are trying to see the same sights at the same time.

As someone said, "It is like taking a walk with 3,000 of your closest friends."

Some highlights: On each side of the lake are mountains, and tributes to current leader Kim Jung-il's parents are carved deeply into the rocks. There is a beautiful observatory that jets out into the lake at the halfway point, and an interesting hanging bridge on the way back. Headed back to the bus, I was stopped by a party worker who wanted to examine my identification tag. And then he waived me on. About 1.5 millon visitors have visited since the opening of the first hotel in 1998, but only 2,000 of them have been Americans. So I'm sure that I was a strange sight. Herded onto the bus, we went directly to the acrobatic show. Complete with a full orchestra and performers from the well-known Pyongyang troupe, it was world class entertainment. And dinner, likewise, was tasty, made from locally raised fish and vegetables. Afterwards, our group chose to take a 20-minute walk back to the hotel, hoping to engage regular North Koreans in conversation. Instead, the only thing that we saw was soldiers sitting in pill boxes and keeping a careful eye on us.

Next was the karaoke bar. Our waitress was dressed in a long, flowing red dress and wearing a red pin with a photo of Kim Jung-il. At various intervals, she and other waitresses, dressed in gowns of pink and orange, took turns singing approved North Korean folk songs that praised their leader. Nobody got up to sing anything else. James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Beyonce do not exist. Afterwards, a number of us split up. Some went outside to once again see if they could find regular North Korean citizens. They found some men barbecuing a dinner of sparrows and vegetables over a grate in a park across from the hotel. The conversation was kept light, an effort to humanize the American face in a less threatening way.

Others went to spa, where the feature that evening was tiny "healing" fish, which eat away the dead skin from your feet.

As for myself, I opted to go to bed. On the television, to my surprise, was Buddhist Network Television. I feel asleep as I had begun my day, listening to the chanting of Buddhist prayers.

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