On the Road in North Korea

Photos by David Guttenfelder

When North Korea opens its doors, it does so for a reason. So it was when the authoritarian government granted permission for a road trip so extensive that few North Koreans — let alone a pair of American journalists — could imagine taking it.

We drove 2,150 kilometers (1,336 miles) in a country that has barely 25,000 kilometers of road, and only 724 kilometers of those paved. By the time we returned to the capital a week later, our Chinese-made Great Wall SUV had a few new scratches and one less hubcap.

Our official destination was majestic Mount Paektu, with its jagged peaks surrounding a crystal-blue crater lake. North Korea is pursuing a plan to create dozens of special foreign investment and tourism zones, and this is one of the places it most wants to promote.

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In this June 16, 2014 photo, statues of animals playing musical instruments stand along the roadside south of Samsu, North Korea in Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

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The easiest way to get there is to fly, but we had been granted permission to drive. This, we were told, would mean traveling through places that no foreign journalists had been allowed to see before.

Still, the trip was on North Korea’s terms.

Even on the loneliest of lonely highways, we would never be without a “minder,” whose job was to monitor and supervise our activities. We were not to take photographs of any checkpoints or military installations, or talk to people we happened to see along the way. For the most part, we were not to detour from our pre-approved route, which, to no one’s surprise, didn’t include nuclear facilities or prison camps.

Though we would not get to know the people along the way, the country itself had a great deal to say. And no place is more symbolic of the North Korean psyche than Mount Paektu.

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In this June 21, 2014 photo, a man works on his car as others sit next to the sea Wonsan, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

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North Koreans venerate it for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. It is dotted by reconstructions of “secret camps,” where guides dressed in period costume recount the legends of Kim Il Sung’s battles against Japanese imperialists.

Before we left Pyongyang, the capital, we were warned, half-jokingly, not to get lost. Mount Paektu straddles North Korea’s border with China.

“If you wander off into China,” we were told, “you will be shot.”

Something similar had, in fact, happened many years ago. No borders were involved, but a South Korean housewife who strayed off the accepted path at a tourist site was fatally shot in the back by a North Korean guard.

Nothing so dramatic had happened as we made our way across the country to the mountain.

Wrested out of our beds for our ascent up to the summit after four days on the road, we fumbled without lights to pack our equipment, made our way down our hotel’s candlelit staircase and climbed into our car in the pouring-down rain. With no signs to guide him, our driver steered silently into the night.

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In this June 14, 2014 photo, portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are illuminated on a building side as the sun rises over Pyongyang. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Many people have been amazed by nighttime satellite images that show North Korea as dark as the ocean, set against a northeast Asia brimming with light. There is nothing in the world like experiencing that darkness on the ground over long stretches of the North Korean back country. Possibly more than any other populated place on the globe, North Korea is terra incognita.

As we drove toward the dawn, two armed soldiers emerged from the darkness, signaled for us to stop and for our minder to get out. The rain was coming down harder as they stood in the blurry pool of our headlights.

One peered in at us through the rain-dotted window. There was a good deal of gesticulating. Then some head nodding. Our minder got back in the car.

We had gotten lost, but we weren’t in China. We were going the wrong way down a one-lane, one-way road.

The soldiers waved us on. With North Korean tourism still in its infancy, we were safe. We wouldn’t see another car until we reached the snowy, wind-whipped parking lot below the crater, where two small vans full of shivering Chinese waited for a guard to wake up and lead them to Lake Chon.

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Click on any image to launch the On the Road in North Korea gallery. 

In this June 17, 2014 photo, a North Korean man sits by a cooking fire he built to roast potatoes and chicken in the town of Samjiyon, in North Korea’s Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 15, 2014 photo, an apartment block stands behind hotel room curtains on the main street in Hamhung, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 20, 2014 photo, young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 20, 2014 photo, an exclamation point punctuates a long propaganda slogan in a field in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province. The Associated Press was granted permission to embark on a weeklong road trip across North Korea to the country’’s spiritual summit Mount Paektu. The trip was on North Korea’s terms. An AP reporter and photographer couldn’t interview ordinary people or wander off course, and government “minders” accompanied them the entire way. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 17, 2014 photo, a deer’s hoof used as a door handle, hangs from the front door of the home where North Koreans say the late leader Kim Jong Il was born around Mount Paektu in North Korea’s Ryanggang province. North Koreans venerate Mount Paektu for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 19, 2014 photo, a hotel employee walks in the lobby of a hotel that accommodates foreign visitors in Chongjin, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In June 18, 2014 photo, a boulder lies on a path near the peak of Mount Paektu in North Korea’s Ryanggang province. North Koreans venerate Mount Paektu for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 16, 2014 photo, farmers walk in a rainstorm with their cattle near the town of Hyesan, North Korea in Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 20, 2014 photo, a North Korean man stands in front of a row of homes in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 14, 2014 photo, portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are illuminated on a building side as the sun rises over Pyongyang. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 19, 2014 photo, a North Korean man pushes his bicycle to a village in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 21, 2014 photo, a group of young North Koreans enjoys a picnic on the beach in Wonsan, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 16, 2014 photo, statues of animals playing musical instruments stand along the roadside south of Samsu, North Korea in Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 20, 2014 photo, North Korean people rest next to the railroad tracks in a town in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 18, 2014 photo, the Associated Press vehicle climbs the slopes of Mount Paektu in North Korea’s in North Korea’s Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 21, 2014 photo, a woman walks along an open road southeast of Pyongyang in North Korea’s North Hwanghae province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 16, 2014 photo, North Korean men share a picnic lunch and North Korean-brewed and bottled Taedonggang beer along the road in North Korea’s North Hwanghae province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 20, 2014 photo, North Korean residents walk on a road along a river in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea’s North Hamgyong province. The once-productive cities along its east coast, like the coal mining town of Kilju and the nearby city of Kimchaek – built around a sprawling but now eerily quiet ironworks complex – have become a rust belt, gritty and relentlessly gray. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 21, 2014 photo, a man works on his car as others sit next to the sea Wonsan, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 16, 2014 photo, boys play soccer in the town of Hyesan in North Korea’s Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 17, 2014 photo, a North Korean man takes shelter in the rain next to long propaganda billboards in the town of Samjiyon in North Korea’s Ryanggang province. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In this June 15, 2014 photo, the remains of lunch sits on a restaurant table in the city of Wonsan, North Korea. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

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Text from the AP news story, AP Exclusive: Driving up revered N. Korea mountain, by Eric Talmadge. 

 

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