North Korea… A mysterious destination, synonimous with – Axis of evil, weapons of mass destruction, Stalinist dictatorship, rogue regime, starvation etc. Yet when pushed further, very few people could say much more than that.

What everyone knows for sure is that North Korea is one of, if not the most, isolated and least understood country in the world. It’s also one of the least visited by foreigners. In fact, most people would point out how secretive the state is and assume that it is nearly impossible to get into; especially for journalists.

Having been bombarded by these sorts of assumptions for years, I decided it was time for me to find out what was really behind those closed doors. I was expecting it to be a ‘mission impossible’ just to get the visa as a photographer. Well, it took me precisely two e-mails before I was told that it would be OK for me to come—a very welcome surprise indeed. In March 2006, I was on a Soviet-era aircraft heading for Pyongyang, capital of North Korea.

Pyongyang airport appears at first just like any other mid-size regional airport, but a very large portrait of Kim Il Sung on the terminal building itself unmistakably declares its location. What a place! And I hadn’t even got off the plane yet. Kim Il Sung’s figure was one that I was to become extremely familiar with during my stay. In fact, in North Korea almost every important building and every room features a portrait of the ‘great leader’, either alone or together with his son, ‘dear leader’ Kim Jong Il. In most cases, there are important quotations from the leaders to complement the portraits.

Before I could declare myself officially in North Korea, I had to ‘survive’ North Korean immigration and customs, which one would expect to be much stricter than, say, in the United States. Passport control took barely 10 minutes, 9 of which were spent queuing. Then came the customs officer, who saw my rather hefty camera bag and “GPS?” he asked, meaning any satellite tracking devices. Fortunately, I had been made aware earlier that anything wireless is a big no no, so didn’t bring any, except a mobile phone, for which they have a locker at the airport to take temporary custody. Otherwise no further questions, checks, nothing, fairly simple really. Having said this, it’s important to bear in mind that my entry would probably have been significantly harder had I been an American citizen or a ‘blacklisted’ journalist. North Korea is one place in the world where you really don’t want to be American. Everything in the country is geared towards blaming the United States. There are propaganda posters all around Pyongyang proudly displaying North Korean missiles striking the U.S. or a Korean man crushing the head of a U.S. marine, which effectively demonstrate the sentiment against the ‘US imperialists’. The Koreans make full use of every opportunity to slag off the U.S. for her actions during the Korean War, known in North Korea as the ‘Victorious Fatherland Liberation War’ – a strange name considering the stalemate armistice or lack of any liberation.

Wherever I travelled in the country, I was accompanied by at least two ‘guides’, a driver plus a further local guide at each location I visited. Since I had no intention of engaging in any espionage, photograph strategic military subjects or to wander off alone, they almost never sought to interfere with my photography. There were a few instances in when I was told not to photograph “in that direction, because the photos might fall into the hands of people hostile to my country”, quickly followed by a disclaimer: “When my country is re-unified I hope you will visit again on holiday with your wife and children, and take as many photographs as you like”. A family trip to North Korea is still some way off, but the guides were nonetheless extremely nice and polite. In this country, when they are satisfied you are not a spy or a ‘pawn of the U.S. imperialists’, they are very nice and welcoming indeed.

Pyongyang is a strange place by anyone’s standard. The Stalinesque architecture, with large concrete blocks and outrageously wide and clean streets that lack any vehicles, is odd indeed. No beggars, street-sellers, homeless people or buskers to be found anywhere. Everybody seems to have a purpose at any moment in time. People getting along with their daily lives make a startling contrast with the hardcore propaganda posters found on every corner. At night though, the city of 2 million is silent. When I say ‘silent’, I mean it. I look out of my window at night from a very tall hotel and it is one of the oddest experiences of my life. It is as if even the buildings themselves were asleep. There are no lights and no noise. It is eerie, yet peaceful. The only things spoiling this experience are the occasional flashes on the distant horizon, which I am told are “military manoeuvres preparing for war”. Well, I am in North Korea after all.

My appointed hotel was on a little island on the Taedong river that divides Pyongyang in two. The island is one place where I could have a short stroll around on my own, but not without asking first. I tried to spend a little bit of time in the afternoons walking around the hotel and by the river, where teenagers seemed to come to hang out after school. They play cards, basketball or just sit around chatting. If they even noticed me, they didn’t show it. I felt like a see-through alien and headed back to the hotel, as I didn’t want my guides to get nervous. I am told that there have been incidents when visitors simply wandered off the island. One even got as far as the Juche tower, which is more a good mile away on the east bank, before they caught up with him. I can imagine the upset this might have caused everyone involved. The guides must have taken the blame and the ‘offender’ probably had to leave the country prematurely.

The Juche tower is one of many huge monuments in the city. Pyongyang has the world’s largest stadium, the tallest hotel (although incomplete), a triumphal arch that dwarfs the one in Paris, a library with 30 million books, a colossal bronze statue of Kim Il Sung—you get the idea. The city is also home to the most elaborate human show on Earth: Arirang. The show takes place on important dates almost every year and involves a cast 100,000 strong. Basically, there are these many ‘small’ monuments that make up this one big monument called Pyongyang.

In Pyongyang, there are no working traffic lights. Instead there are very smartly dressed, good looking female traffic wardens located in a small circle in the middle of almost every intersection, giving directions in a robotic manner to the occasional vehicle that passes. Just like all the other workers I saw, they appear to do their job with utmost care, respect and pride. The Koreans really do appear to believe in their way of life and have very strongly held beliefs. These priviledged citizens and the monumental city they inhabit make up the showcase capital of North Korea, representing the ideology and the ambitions of the regime in an unmistakable manner. It’s easy, however, to forget that Pyongyang is not representative of North Korea as a whole. People in rural areas live in very basic conditions to say the least. North Korea’s forced isolation from the world seems to have really taken its toll, and it’s likely to get worse with the further sanctions imposed after the nuclear test conducted by North Korea in October 2006.

North Korea, or formally the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a difficult country to understand; and an easy one to misunderstand. A personal visit to North Korea is mandatory for anyone wishing to delve deeper than the ‘axis-of-evil’ label, but even then, it is not easy to grasp the true essence of the country when contact with the locals are extremely limited.

Alejandro Cao de Benos, North Korea’s Special Delegate of the Committeee for Cultural Relations With Foreign Countries says a nuclear deterrent is vital to the country’s existence and protection from the U.S. aggression: “DPRK wants peace and hopes to sit at the table with the U.S. and be treated as an equal. Sanctions will only worsen the situation as Korean people never kneel down.” Only time will tell the future of Cold War’s only remaining front.

Author – Cavit Erginsoy
Photography – David Astley.

All photographs reproduced with kind permission of David Astley, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike2.5 licence.

During my travels have I come to accept the fact that the unexpected and unimaginable, can and will happen.

But still, some things I just don’t count on.

I was travelling by bus from the north of Thailand to Bangkok. We had just left a rest stop when my stomach started to move. In a minute or two it was very clear that it was a bad case of RPD-(Rocket Propelled Diarrhoea) coming.

With a tight margin did I rush in to the toilet!

As with most bus toilets, this one had very limited space for big Scandinavians. I was further obstructed by a big water barrel and the positioning of the stainless steel cone, supplementing as the main functioning apparatus for this specific space.

I had to turn 180 degrees on the spot to be able to lock the door.

The unimaginable strikes again!

The floor gave away a little bit and my foot slid under the wall. Surprised as II tried to retrieve my foot, the floor sprang up and I realised that I was seriously stuck.

This was when a slight panic began. After a couple of desperate tugs, it was time for some FAST thinking.

I soon abandoned the idea of doing my business with my foot still in a pinch, when I realised that I couldn’t really reach and do it safely in the steel cone.

At this moment came the really heavy metal feeling of panic.

I started to act as if I were on a ballet audition.

After some very dangerous ballet moves in this tiny space without any grips, on a wildly shaking and dancing bus speeding through the black night, I finally managed to free my poor trapped foot..

Did my business on the grubbiest toilet I ever saw in Thailand (and that says a lot). But it didn’t matter at the time, ’cause if I had had to wait two more seconds, this would have been an unimaginably disgusting story.

08:00 AM September 8th, 2002 -

After my third night in Bangkok I am fulfilling a lifelong dream by arriving in an air-conditioned minivan at the Cambodian border town of Poipet. I am still hung over from the previous evening, and nervous (in that excited kind of way), but I am determined to prove all my friends wrong. Getting through customs only takes an hour and we are soon across the border. As I walk through the filthy streets to the bus (‘tank’ might be a better description) that will travel to Siem Reap, I am definitely having second thoughts. I have never been in a filthier place than Poipet.

As I (literally) step over beggars without arms and legs, I am reminded that Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. I take a deep breath, trying to focus on the huge archway replica of Angkor Wat with the words I have dreamed of seeing all my life: Welcome To The Kingdom Of Cambodia. I somehow manage to avoid the 12-year-olds wandering the crowds armed with stun batons and walk the 1/2 mile to the “bus” that will take me to Siem Reap.

140 miles and 12 gruelling hours later, I am aching and bruised all over from travelling a ‘road’ that has to be experienced to be believed as we finally enter Siem Reap. We are deposited at the Beng Mealea Guesthouse, which I am quite content to stay at. In fact, at US$6.00 per night, it is an excellent bargain, with good food to boot. The bus tout offers to be my driver for US$10.00 per day, $20.00 for the day I visit Banteay Srei but it’s still a hell of a bargain, and I accept. His name is Proseur, an employee of Beng Mealea and a typical Khmer, modest, soft-spoken and eager to practice his passable English on me. I will ride ‘helmetless’ on the back of his motorcycle for the next 5 days as we tour the temples of Angkor.

10:30 September 9th, 2002 -

My family and friends told me I was crazy, that to go to Cambodia was tantamount to suicide; the best I would get would be artificial legs as a souvenir. I was about to find out if their misgivings were unfounded or not as I headed into the “jungles” of Cambodia to see the fabled ruins of Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Banteay Srei, Ruolous, and the other temple/city complexes.

We set out from Beng Mealea through the streets of SiemReap and I quickly learned that in Cambodia, the largest vehicle has the right-of-way. There are no lanes and the roads are all dirt until we reach the Angkor Wat circuit. However, there are two stoplights in the city (that I saw) and oddly enough, they are superior to the stoplights in the USA – they had a digital counter when red or green, counting down from 45 to 0 so you knew exactly how much time you had to cross the intersection.

Once we reached the Angkor Wat circuit ticket inspection point, the road was paved, albeit rather crudely compared to the USA. The temperature was around 100 degrees F. so being on the back of a motorcycle was definitely the way to go, though not having a helmet (no-one wears one in Cambodia) was somewhat nerve-wracking.

Taking Proseur’s recommendation, we went to Bayon first, bypassing Angkor Wat. This was definitely a good choice, as I was to discover later.

Bayon is a smaller temple in scope and an excellent starting point for what can be an overwhelming experience. As we approached the temple we passed through the Victory Gate, consisting of Hindu gods on the right and demons on the left, each group holding the body of a Naga, or 9-headed cobra, the guardian of the Bayon. This culminates in the entranceway of the Victory Gate, an archway topped by images of Buddah facing in each direction. This is a truly awesome monument, and yet only a hint of what is to come. Passing through the Victory Gate, we continue on through the Cambodian “jungle”, in reality sparse groves of dense palm and banyan trees separated by flat expanses of grasslands. Bayon arrives abruptly and spectacularly; not arising slowly from the horizon, but suddenly appearing as we take a sharp turn on the road to reveal fully, this ruined wonder.
At first appearing extremely dilapidated, as we get closer the magnificent details begin to become apparent. The most notable are the 200+ Buddha faces that appear grouped in fours on 54 towers that are directly facing the cardinal points the compass. Also in this “complex” (for lack of a better term – temples are often within 100 feet of each other) is the Royal Palace (closed for restoration), the Terrace of Elephants (spectacular), Terrace of the Leper King (awesome detailed carvings and unusual statue), and Phimeanakas, the Aerial palace.

Phimeanakas is a very steep climb with no guardrail on three of the four sides. The climb and even more so the descent (even on the guard railed side) is not for the agoraphobic, but the view is worth anything short of a phobia.

8:57 AM September 11th, 2002 -

I’m away from the USA on the anniversary of the twin tower attacks intentionally: Terrorists scared many Americans from travelling at all, so I am travelling to (supposedly) one of the most dangerous countries on earth. The truth of the matter is that Siem Reap is crime free day and night and I never once felt threatened walking the streets at night unlike Hong Kong, the “safest city in the world”, where I was robbed at knifepoint the first night I was there. The Khmer people are the friendliest I have ever encountered anywhere; this truly is ‘The Land Of Smiles’.

Today, I am headed to Angkor Wat, the ultimate destination; the largest religious monument on the face of the earth. We arrive at 09:43, and are immediately surrounded by children selling everything from film to handmade musical instruments. I fight my way through them and make it across the street to the relative safety of the guards who keep the beggars and hawkers to a minimum outside the main temple entrances. It is here that I get my first view of Angkor Wat – across an 820ft stone causeway, leading to a large stone entrance, flanked on either side by manmade pools of water, or ‘barays’. I wonder where the seven famous towers are as I walk forward to the outer building; I climb the stairs and enter.

As I approach the doorway on the opposite side, I finally see it – Angkor Wat. The towers rise magnificently in the distance, framed by a cloudless blue sky. It is the most overwhelming thing I have ever experienced. The scope of this temple simply has to be experienced to be truly understood.

There is another long, stone causeway, this one leading through a lush green field to the main temple entrance, flanked midway by two stone libraries that are currently being restored. The size of the towers seems to grow as I approach, until they are encompassed by the main building itself. I go through the main entrance leading to the courtyard and enter the Hall Of A Thousand Buddhas. There are considerably less than a thousand Buddhas here now, and the Khmer Rouge has mostly decapitated the ones that are left in their efforts to destroy religion during the Zero Years (1975 – 1979).

I finally enter the courtyard and wander the temple, admiring the more than 1000 Apsara carvings (Bas reliefs depicting celestial dancing girls – a style unique to Khmer art). The towers are initially the most striking feature but once I begin to notice the details in the Bas-reliefs, I am struck by the depiction of the ‘Churning Of The Ocean Of Milk’ from the Hindu epic, Ramayana.

I spend the entire day at Angkor Wat, wandering the galleries, marvelling at the carvings and viewing the landscape from the top of the inner sanctum, some 200 feet up.

0643 September 12th, 2002 -

I am up early today as we have a long drive ahead of us: Banteay Srei, some 30 miles into the “jungle”.
I am paying my driver extra today, because of the length of the drive and because the tourist police charge the Khmer drivers a “fee” for using roads outside the Angkor complex – a common scam. I would definitely recommend making the drive by motorcycle.

I got my first view of the temple as we arrived and was initially disappointed, although upon closer inspection my disappointment turned to wonder.

Banteay Srei is a small red sandstone temple with the most impressive carvings of any temple I visited. The detail was absolutely stunning and the carvings are accented by the beautiful reddish hue of the sandstone used in the construction.
From here we headed back to the Angkor circuit to revisit Ta Prohm, my favourite temple in the country. Ta Prohm has undergone no restoration, having almost been reclaimed thoroughly by the jungle. Instead, it has been left as it was found. Impressive Banyan and Kepok trees spring from the rooftops of the temples, their roots displacing and reforming the walls into a scene from a fantasy film (in fact, parts of Tomb Raider were filmed here). Ta Prohm is a ‘must see’ for visitors to Angkor.

1100 September 13th, 2002 -

Spent the rest of last night wandering the streets of Siem Reap. I was feeling moved by the experiences of the temples and I needed a break, but today is my last day here, so I am revisiting my favourite temples. The feeling of awe is still there as I walk the long causeway leading to Angkor Wat, but it is less overpowering, allowing me to appreciate the more subtle architectural nuances. The Khmer style is more noticeable now; the feeling that was poured into every carving, every stone block, the fact that they were able to construct archways that are still standing 1000 years later without benefit of concrete or other binding materials; that they constructed temples that the jungle could reclaim but not destroy; that the details of their carvings lasted through centuries of time and decades of war. Its all still here for us to marvel at; a true testament to the skill of the Khmer.

Tomorrow morning I’m heading back to Bangkok. I feel a twinge of sadness, but I know that this is a place I will return to. It compels me.

Author: Dan Quinton

Photography: Many thanks to Tropical Island