The forbidden railway: Vienna - Pyongyang (2008)

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.de/2008/04/how-everything-began.html?m=0

by tobiasbischoff • 14 years ago

170 34 14 years ago

vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.de

lmm• 14 years ago

I went London-Shanghai (and ultimately Osaka) last year; one of the most affecting parts of that journey was going through the deserts of Kazakhstan and north-west China (e.g. https://www.cliché.net/photos/2012-04-02%20Trip/SDC16011.JPG and https://www.cliché.net/photos/2012-04-02%20Trip/SDC16084.JPG - hosted on my home connection so will be slow), which you miss by staying on the trans-siberian line. It's also a chance to see a really different side of China (as a European it's easy to imagine China will all be the same, being a single country, but of course it's as big and varied as, well, Europe) - and the route I took goes right past Baikonur, so there's always the chance of a rocket launch.

It's no good for going to North Korea (you finish in China, and as noted the line Beijing-Pyongyang is closed to tourists), but if you were just thinking of a big rail trip like the trans-siberian, have a look at the route via Kazakhstan too.

seanmcdirmid• 14 years ago

I took a train from Shanghai to Urumuqi once, took 2 and a half days; China is just freaking big.

Beijing Pyongyang is/was open to tourists at least a few years ago, they put you in a special car while everyone else gets off somewhere in Liaoning.

theorm• 14 years ago

The train Beijing-Pyongyang is still running indeed. I took it half a year ago.

rayiner• 14 years ago

That was great. I fricking love trains.

dirtyaura• 14 years ago

Awesome travel diary. I took Trans-Mongolian from Moscow to Beijing with my friends in 2002 and it was quite a trip. I can just imagine how did the OP feel when they crossed North Korean border. Based on the photos he took, country-side dwellings in North Korea are of better quality than my impression was.

veb• 14 years ago

I saw this posted in the comments on another thread and spent hours reading the whole thing -- epic journey, and I absolutely adored the photographs of North Korea.

It looks surprisingly beautiful, in its own way.

Heliosmaster• 14 years ago

such an amazing story

OGinparadise3• 14 years ago

It's great as long as you know you are not getting a full picture. You see what they want you to see, if you think any different you are delusional. If you approach anyone on the street, you will most likely get them in trouble and it's very unlikely for them to tell the truth (even "the veggies are kinda brownish" is subversion and by now they have seen what happens to their "subversive" neighbors and maybe family members).

Not to mention that almost all of them have been born and raised in that system, they know no better and are fed daily propaganda to make them believe that the outside world is much worst. I'd bet that most North Koreans would pass a lie detectors test with flying colors when saying that they love their current system.

dmm• 14 years ago

History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea. Everyone should see Adrian Hong's speech: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4170683

He's co-founded a NGO that helps escapees from dprk.

One challenge I always have when I speak about North Korea is I run out of adjectives for how bad things are. And many of you that follow policy or human rights situations oftentimes get jaded with numbers,”

“It’s very easy for us to write off bad things because we just assume these are bad things that happen ‘over there,’ and many times they don’t necessarily affect us. And the challenge with North Korea in particular is that things are so bad on such a scale and scope that it sounds fake. It sounds unfathomable, it’s impossible to really comprehend.”

derleth• 14 years ago

> History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea.

Is there any way of stopping it short of a bloody, protracted war?

pcrh• 14 years ago

"History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea."

History isn't judging "us" harshly for Rwanda, Somalia, etc, so I doubt it will judge "us" harshly for the DPRK. It will likely judge those directly responsible, however, for example the army of the DPRK.

The reason is that they they are keeping their population in a developmental limbo that benefits no one except the the elite.

LaGrange• 14 years ago

Actually, deeper into the article you can see that the arrival from an unexpected direction caused so much confusion that you get this quote:

"And we? We were standing next to the sleeping-car at the regauging facility of Tumangan. No soldier, no guide, no conductor... nobody took care of us or what we did...

We were really surprised about so much freedom in North Korea! Usually something like that is totally impossible for tourists in North Korea..."

And yes, this is followed by the explanation of a typical tourist experience.

mercuryrising• 14 years ago

Wow that was really cool. It's too bad the pictures started breaking when he was documenting his time in North Korea, all of those would be really interesting to see.

Odd how easy it was for them to get in. Flash a couple passports, visas, and fake like you like the great leader and you're in.

He commented that the route he took is no longer an option for tourists - not that it really was in the beginning, but the travel agency where he bought his tickets was informed that that one was no longer available. He said that when asked who recommended the tickets and where he found them, he responded with "we found them and bought them". I wonder how the travel agency got involved. (After reading more - he contacted the travel agency late enough for them not to alter the travel plans, but soon enough to talk to the Koreans to set up a guide).

I never knew how isolated South Korea was because of North Korea (no road/rail transport to the rest of the world).

That was pretty cool, and ridiculously in depth.

adrianm2• 14 years ago

I really had no idea how horrible the humanitarian crisis in North Korea really was until I began reading about it yesterday after checking out the blog post that was on the front page here. I feel ashamed I have been ignorant for so long.

In summary of what I've learned, it's generally accepted that there are around 200,000 people kept in active concentration camps [1]. There are two types of camps: those for political prisoners (and those related to suspected defectors, because you're guilty by association with the convicted individual) held until they die, and re-education camps for "minor" offenses. Regardless of the prisoner classification, both are subject to a similarly deplorable fate.

Conditions are eerily reminiscent of concentration camps operated by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

This includes: 1) Constant threat of public execution at the whims of guards. 2) Deplorable conditions including: lack of suitable sleeping areas, lack of general access to toilets except on a twice daily basis. 3) Malnutrition. Amnesty reports 40% of inmates die due to malnutrition. Highly rationed diet consisting of 100 grams of corn (if you're not being punished) and salt soup. Finding and eating rats raw is generally considered a blessing, but at the risk of punishment by guards. 4) Torturing prisoners is commonplace. Without going into the gory details, suffice it to say, it is horrible. 5) Human experimentation performed on prisoners a la Dr. Mengele. 6) Infanticide of babies born in captivity.

I remember when I first learned about the Holocaust in school and wondered how in the hell did the world stand by for so long while these atrocities were being committed? Now I understand.

When you are, by pure randomness, lucky enough to be living in a part of the world where these horrible acts are distant enough to barely register on the press radar, reading about these things do seem unfathomable, almost fake.

Most of what I've heard about North Korea in the past has focused on their bizarre cult of personality and generally bizarre culture. As comical as North Korea is made out to be in much of the internet, there is a serious humanitarian crisis ongoing. Given that the Korean War ended in 1953, the situation has perpetuated for sixty years now.

If the statistic of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust shocks and disgusts you, I shudder to think about what we shall uncover after the North Korean dictatorship falls (if it ever does at this point if the situation continues) and their dark history finally becomes public knowledge. It really makes me feel nauseous to think that we always have to wait until after the atrocities end to learn from them.

Is there anything we can do? I'm sure there is, I just don't know what. Ugh.

[1] Amnesty International Media Briefing on North Korean Prison Camps http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA24/001/2011/en/26...

pygy_• 14 years ago

Horrific, indeed. They also put child workers in drugs fields because they are less likely to abuse or steal it.

Sorry to pick nit after this awful depiction, but this oversight is too common:

> If the statistic of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust shocks and disgusts you [...]

Add 5 millions of Romani, homosexuals, disabled people and slavic prisoners of war. Popular history tends to forget them.

adrianm2• 14 years ago

I agree with you. It's really not even a nitpick, it's the truth that should be emphasized more.

It doesn't look like I'm able to edit my original comment, unfortunately.

goodcanadian• 14 years ago

It is very hard to do anything. For decades, both China and the Soviet Union supported North Korea as a buffer to keep American soldiers away from their own borders. Neither country liked the North Koreans very much, but they didn't like each other very much either, so the Koreans could play one off the other to get away with whatever they wanted. Moreover, there was no possibility for the Americans or the South Koreans to do anything without risking war with the Soviets and/or the Chinese.

This situation changed somewhat with the fall of the Soviet Union. I believe the article has a chart of the freight tonnage crossing the border that shows a sharp drop off at this time (I saw the chart somewhere last night). The loss of aid from the Russians exacerbated the North Korean famine in the 1990s. The Chinese still continued to support the Koreans as a buffer state, however. Recently, it has become clear that the Chinese have grown somewhat ambivalent to the whole situation (wikileaks, for example). It is now unlikely that they would defend North Korea in a war, but they do still think of it as their backyard. For the Americans and South Koreans, the prospect of going to war against the North with a possibly nuclear armed army of 2 million soldiers is not very appealing.

I would say that the Chinese influence is growing as the Koreans have not been able to play them off against the Soviets for the last 20 years. More and more (capitalist) Chinese investment seems to be occurring, and the country seems to be opening up ever so slightly, though the Koreans still act pretty randomly.

One final note, I have been watching North Korea for a few years, and I would say there has been a very important sign of opening up. Last night, I watched a video from a tour where the guide at a collective farm talked openly if not completely honestly about the famine. A few years ago, they would not have even admitted that the famine occurred and blamed it on American propaganda. The door has been wedged open a little bit, and I am hopeful that a new generation of leadership that has grown up without the benefit of Soviet support will allow things to open further. Then, we may be able to do something productive about the atrocities that sadly still occur.

Sulfolobus• 14 years ago

This is why I'm getting a bit annoyed with all the "visiting North Korea" stuff. You are directly funding the regime.

ars2• 14 years ago

You are, but ignoring things and people never visiting would be worse.

nandemo2• 14 years ago

I understand one might refuse to go there out of principle, but on monetary terms alone I think it doesn't matter. The income from tourism is irrelevant for NK.

Besides trade with (and possibly significant aid from) China, NK gets hard currency from selling arms to other countries, and illegal activities such as counterfeiting, smuggling and drug traffic.

http://theconversation.edu.au/north-koreas-basketcase-econom...

nikster• 14 years ago

Its still always better to go there; it was like this in Burma (before they opened up); and it is like this in North Korea. The more contact there is with the outside world, the quicker things will change.

A boycott only helps the people in power.

I have a feeling things will soon change in N Korea. Its not any specific information I have read, its just a collective pressure that weakens those regimes and those who support them.

Take Burma as an example - the leadership got sick of the failed state, the abysmal economy, the boycott against regime sons and daughters - an absolutely brillant plan whereby countries simply dont accept sons, daughters, and other family members of dictatorships; this hits where it hurts, on a personal level, when you might the the king in your country with $Bns stolen from the people in a bank account but your daughter cant go to school in Australia or fly to Paris. I wish more countries would participate.

Back to Burma, I followed that situation for years and it seemed completely hopeless. But then the Burmese leadership faced a situation: Either change and open to the west or get bought out by China. They didnt want China to come in and own the country so they opened up, and now all sorts of good things happen.

Russia is already uninterested in N Korea - maybe there is some strategic benefit but they wont go so far as to send money. And China, it seems like, wont need them much either anymore, seeing as they are now the worlds factory and they benefit from commerce much more than they ever could from confrontation. China might fall away as an ally and then N Korea is going to reform.

twentysix• 14 years ago

He mentioned the Yodok camp in his travelogue. If the account given in Wikipedia is true, the conditions there are truly horific.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp#Condi...

It sounds like one of the worst places on earth and we wont know the true extent of the horror until the situation changes there and the country opens up.

OGinparadise3• 14 years ago

Is there anything we can do? I'm sure there is, I just don't know what. Ugh.

Not really, they are armed to the teeth. The West tried once as you mentioned and if we try again, Seoul will probably be leveled in minutes and untold millions might die in both sides. The West had much smaller countries to liberate and did jack.

They are hundreds of millions that lived through them in Eastern Europe so it's not new. Maybe NK is a bit harsher but the same principle applies.

nandemo2• 14 years ago

You could join or donate to a NGO that helps North Korean defectors. Some help North Koreans who are living in South Korea, Japan, or elsewhere. Some actively help people escape to those countries after they have crossed the Chinese border.

I know of a couple such organizations in Japan. You could try and find one in your country.

nodata• 14 years ago

Is there anything we can do? I'm sure there is, I just don't know what. Ugh.

Anyone?

julianpye• 14 years ago

Lovely story! If the author ever wants to apply to YC, he has a perfect answer for the 'hack a system in real life question' :)

alenart• 14 years ago

Amazing story, from beginning to end - the bucolic DPRK countryside hides such dark mysteries.

contingencies• 14 years ago

If you are curious about North Korea, just look across the border from China. You can see plenty. Near the town of Changbaishan (and slightly west of there) is the best area. You're only a few meters across the river, and you can see everything, even a full scale city. If you're a train nut, you can even satisfy your curiosity by seeing a failed short-haul train the North Koreans took years to build. There's no need to go there and fund them.

The forbidden railway: Vienna - Pyongyang (2008)

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