North Korea from China / Dandong

[london82]

We didn't visit any extra places. I think it's because there are a huge amount of things to do in Pyongyang. I think my original schedule was only 4 days and excluded Kim Il Song's Mausoleum. That may be the differences between our iteniaries. I think you should make sure your guide includes this and also the subway in Pyonyang if it doesn't already. Everything else is probably the same. Like I said before, it may be worth trying to ask if you can visit a dept store. Apparently some groups get to do this and we were all frustrated by the lack of experience to see north Koreans doing real things. There were some in restaurants but we just spent alot of time watching them mourning Kim Il Song. I don't like mausoleums at all but I think it was really important in order to see the Koreans respect for this man. I really recommend it.

[koreth]

Steve_659, kaifaqu crue: If the three of us can go at the same time that'll be great -- we'll get the English tour guide without the surcharge. I'll definitely keep posting here as I talk to the travel agent. He seems to have a bit of a lag time on his E-mail replies; seems like maybe he doesn't check his mail every day, or my Chinese is so bad it takes him days to decipher.

My schedule in China is such that 8/13 would be my ideal start date. If we do the 5-day tour I probably shouldn't start any later than 8/15; I have a friend in Shanghai to visit afterwards, then I'm returning to the USA, and I want to have time to do more than just wave hi to my friend before heading back home. If 8/15 is too early for you guys, I could also go see my friend first, then do the NK tour and go home immediately afterwards. (Talk about culture shock.) I'd prefer to do Shanghai last on my trip if possible, though.

Of course, this will depend in large part on when the North Koreans start their tours. No idea how flexible the start dates are -- maybe they only have one tour per week and it starts on a certain day of the week and if you don't like it, tough. I'll try to find out.

Emma, what was your impression of that? Did it seem like they had tours starting every day or two, or was your start date pretty constrained?

[Guest cutetaiki]

Hi London82,

I just read this Banned items list and other regulations for North Korea from Tour to Korea website :

"Mobile phones and other communications devices are not permitted.

Cameras with telephoto lenses of more than160mm"

Are they really check the camera ?

Thank you

[koreth]

By happy coincidence, I have some news on this front. Despite sending him a couple email messages, I never heard back from the agent whose reply I translated in my earlier message. But I did hear back from Brooklyn (contact info on page 2 of this thread) and after an exchange of email messages, I have my trip all set up.

The tour should leave from Dandong on August 14 (possibly the 15th; one of the other people in the group may have a scheduling conflict, but Brooklyn is checking to see if the 14th is doable, since that's better for me). I don't even have to mail him my passport in advance; I've emailed him the visa application form and a digital photo, and he says if I give him my passport the morning of the 13th, he'll be able to get my visa taken care of in time.

The bad news is that it's more expensive, 7000RMB. Obviously I'd rather have paid 5000, but as his email came in pretty close to my drop-dead point for figuring out my travel schedule, I didn't want to risk blowing the whole thing by spending a lot of time bargaining it down. Yeah, not very good Chinese purchasing technique, I know.

However, I bet if other people got in touch with him too, that price would probably go down for the lot of us, especially if we made it clear we've mutually referred each other. He told me he'd expect to get a 1000RMB deposit when I give him my passport, and the rest at departure. So it seems like it should be possible for better negotiators than me to get a group discount. My real name is Steven Grimm if anyone wants to give that a shot.

[happysabrina]

Letting this ad through as we don't get much North Korea-orientated spam and the pricing info might be useful.

How travel to North Korea

1 how to go to North Korea (Beijing –Dandong-North korea )

3 how to apply the visa (send me your passport and 2 inch colour photos（2） before 7 days)

4 how to find hotel in Dandong (we will manage that for you)

5 how much is the fee to go to North Korea (3 nights 4 days travelling around 4280 BMB)

（ 1 USD=7.9585RMB）

1: 4000 RMB: (3 nights 4 days accomadation + meals +tickets + transportation in Pyongyang)

2: 240RMB: visa

3: 40 rmb: tip

Total: 4280 RMB (from Beijing – pyongyang- Beijing)

4: 263RMB: ( train ticket from Beijing - Dandong )(hard bed)

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After October there is no Mass Games involves over 100,000 performers and takes place in the May Day Stadium)

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6 : The schedule in North Korea for 4 days

Day 1 dandong- pyongyang

Place to visit (wan shou tai monument ,datong river) live in Yanggakdo hotel( nice hotel)

Day 2 Pyongyang – kai city- Panmunjom (borden line between south korea and north korea)

The meeting room in Panmunjom (the place to sign and separate one country to become two parts) wanjingtai (Kim Il Sung birthplace), kai city museum, and legendary Chollima horse…

Day 3 Pyongyang – Miaoxiang Mountain

Place to visit: miaoxiang museum ( the gift from all over the world), puxian temple…..

Day 4 Pyongyang – Dandong

Place to visit: Arch of Triumph, (higher than the one in Paris), subway in Pyongyang, (very long wondering why) shopping …

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name (surname/first name) passport number

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email address date of birth (yy/mm/dd)

company name -------------------------------- your position------------

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how will you leave?

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we will pick you up in dandong at railway station. you go to north korea from Dandong. we will help you to find hotel for you accoding to your buget( it is not include in the tour fee in north korea)

from dandong the tour fee is ( 4000rmb food + hotel + admission+train ticket to pyongyang+ bus)( 240rmb visa)( 40rmb tip)

total : 4280rmb ( 3 nights 4 days travelling tour in north korea ) and back to dandong

the address for sending the passport

LIAONING PROVINCE DANDONG CITY DEVELOPE ZONE B 14# BUILDING

[roddy]

For anyone who's interested - China's set to officially allow Chinese tourist groups to visit North Korea. Obviously anyone reading the above will see that this has already been happening, but this might make it easier to arrange from other cities (a tourism office in Shenyang is mentioned). Obviously being foreign is still likely to be an issue, but presumably the changes won't make things any harder at least.

BBC, in Chinese.

[koreth]

I think this is just about tour groups run by Chinese tour operators.

Though I was bad about it and didn't post an update here, I did end up going with Brooklyn, but not via Dandong. The North Koreans decided they didn't trust an American to come in by land. So I went via Shenyang instead. There is an Air Koryo ticket office in Shenyang, and the NK consulate there is clearly used to dealing with issuing tourist visas (though mine took longer than the Europeans', me being an evil American and all.)

From the Shenyang airport I flew in on a packed-to-the-gills plane of Chinese tourists, and then, although I got my own English-speaking guide, rode into Pyongyang with them on a tour bus complete with Chinese-speaking North Korean guide giving them an intro to the country. Most of the guests in the hotel were Chinese (non-Chinese were somewhat discouraged from mingling with them, but not actually forbidden from doing so, so I talked to a few) and there were tons of Chinese-language souvenirs and so forth to be had.

Point being, I don't think it was hard for Chinese tourists to go to NK before, and even to do so from Shenyang. But it's true that once there, they were organized into a tour group by the North Koreans. So maybe that's the big change.

BTW, I highly recommend the trip to NK. It is a mindblowing experience even given you're shepherded around on a tour bus most of the time. One of the Chinese I talked to said he came to NK to remind himself of what China was like during the worst part of the Cultural Revolution, and I can totally see that. I'm very sorry the people there have to live like that (another of the Chinese I talked to said he wished the US military would invade and free the people, not a sentiment I expected to hear) but I'm glad I've gotten a little taste of what life in a place like that is like.

[studychinese]

Koreth and others,

Any idea is longer tours, like a week long, are possible?

Also, what is the latitude for free movement? Any at all?

[koreth]

If you're a US citizen, your choices are limited. I took a 4-day tour (which was really two full days plus one morning) and there's also a 5-day tour that I think they let Americans into. In any event, you can only go there while the "Arirang" show is going on, and that only happens at certain times of year.

If you're a citizen of just about any other country aside from South Korea, I believe you can go pretty much any time of year. There are longer tours that hit lots of other interesting locations, e.g., hiking expeditions to Mt. Baekdu. Chinese and Russian citizens seem to get some latitude to go unsupervised, but in general you'll never be far from a handler who'll tell you where you can and can't go, and it'll be really hard to have anything more than brief eye contact with any NK citizen whose job isn't to deal with tourists.

[studychinese]

Koreth, I am from Australia.

4 to 5 days seems a bit rushed, so a full week would be better, but I am not sure how much I could enjoy that if I were herded around.

Going to NK seems like an awesome experience, and it is something that I am keen to do. The cost seems quite low. Are there any additional expenses once you are in NK? What opportunities are there to buy NK products? There is no real contact with normal people? What are the guides like? Are they susceptible to bribe or incentive?

Sorry to harry you with the questions!

[atitarev]

A Chinese friend of mine told me an interesting story about "communication" between Chinese North Korean border soldiers, it's not fresh and second-handed but I wonder if there is any truth in it, I hope I don't hurt anybody's feelings:

Say, there is some abandoned house or a shed on the Chinese North-Korean border. A North Korean soldier brings a prostitute and leaves her there. A Chinese soldier comes to the shed for a night, has fun with her and leaves tomorrow, he must leave some food or maybe some useful items in the shed as a pay (no money is used). There's hardly any conversation between the border soldiers but this kind of trade supposedly exists.

[smh254]

Koreth, how much did this end up costing you?

I'm an American currently studying in Beijing and I have a holiday coming up at the beginning of October. Unfortunately, my Mandarin skills are extremely limited so I will have a hard time working out the details.

Thanks!

[koreth]

It was a little on the expensive side, though I don't remember the exact amount off the top of my head. I want to say a couple thousand USD -- I remember it was right on the edge of too expensive but I figured I should stretch my budget since the opportunity probably would never come up again. Basically what happened was that I ended up having to fly in as mentioned, and since the flight was booked at the last moment, it was much more expensive than the train ride discussed earlier in the thread. If you can go in from Dandong it should be a fair bit cheaper.

Once you're there, everything is covered except any souvenirs you want to buy. I brought along some fruit (which is basically nonexistent there) and some candies from China, as well as some instant noodles and other stuff. Ended up giving most of it to my guide as a thank-you gift at the end. You can also give little gifts to, e.g., some of the child performers they'll take you to see. But unless you want to get on the Internet while you're there -- which is insanely, astronomically, comically expensive -- you don't have to arrive with tons of cash.

Not speaking Mandarin isn't a problem once you're in NK (most of them don't speak it either and you'll get an English-speaking guide) but yeah, it might make it a bit tougher to get there. The good news is that Brooklyn, mentioned earlier in the thread, is fluent in English, very friendly, and, assuming he hasn't moved on to other things by now, knows exactly what to do to make everything happen.

That said, the last-minute switch in plans on the North Koreans' part did require me to make my own way to Shenyang to meet up with him, then, when it became clear my visa wouldn't be ready until the morning of the flight, get myself back to the NK consulate and from there to the airport. (Brooklyn had to return to Dandong to meet the rest of the group.) And then once I got back I had to arrange my own flight from Shenyang to Shanghai. If you know in advance that you'll have to go by air, this is all probably doable with less difficulty. My Mandarin skills aren't exactly great either, though, and I managed.

As for other tours, I personally felt like the 4-day trip was about right. I would probably have been fine with the 5-day one but my schedule didn't permit it. Much longer than that and I think the constant supervision would have driven me nuts.

According to my guide there, if you come into NK on your own rather than as part of a larger group, they do let you have some flexibility in your agenda. He said the solo tourist he'd had just before me was a guy from Syria who, e.g., wanted to go have a meal in an ordinary Pyongyang pub instead of in the hotel. My guide had to get permission from his superiors to do that, but in the end was able to take the guy there.

Hope that's helpful.

[studychinese]

Indeed it was! Thanks, koreth!

[anon6969]

If you are interested in joining my tour group to N.Korea in February next year (2009) please PM me. The more people we have, the cheaper it is for all of us

[roddy]

Out of curiosity, those of you who've made this trip - do you go in and out on a group visa, or an individual one? If a group visa, does this count as an 'entry' to China (if you have say, a double entry tourist visa?

[pandaxiongmao]

As far as I know, it is always a group visa for westerners. I have visited from both China and South Korea, and in both cases I was at least superficially in a group.

The tours (now stopped) from South Korea into Kaesong and Mt. Kumgang I was put on a bus that crossed the border as part of a group, went to the same hotel, went sightseeing with at least part of that group. However, it was possible to walk around the town area, since it was fenced off to other North Koreans. I felt it was kind of like a moon base in that sense - definitely not the North Korea you see in documentaries by Koryo Tours.

To answer your other question, I went on a tour from China that included Americans, and that had not gotten a double entry visa for China. The people not already in China had to wait to get their paperwork sorted out after they got to China, so that used up a Chinese visa entry. They were forced to pay a lot of extra money to get the necessary visa to reenter China on a Sunday. That ran something like $175US, but this was back when a Chinese visa was something like $50 for Americans. These Americans did not think they needed the double entry visa, since they weren't even leaving Beijing's airport going back, but it turned out they still needed another entry.

[empelfant]

Anon: I might be interested in joining your tour, can you please post some more details?

[votrechien]

Hi All,

I know this may not be the best place to post this, but nevertheless...

I am trying to organize a 4-day tour of North Korea in late April. The company www.tmbrooklyn.com.cn has let me know he has a tour leaving on a Friday in late April with a Chinese group and that I am welcome to join. I believe the tour dates are likely going to coincide with the May holidays in China although I am not completely sure. He quoted me a price of 7500 rmb but I think we could probably haggle this down to 5000ish or below if there were a couple of us.

Is anyone interested in doing this tour? If so, please email me (surreybc (at) hotmail.com) or pm me.

[travelDPRK]

Travellers come to Dandong solely for its vicinity to the North Korean border.During August to October is worth time to visit North Korea cause there will be Arirang Festival which is very Great Mass game. And also the weather is lovely. A lot of Western tourists think that to apply North Korea traveling visa is difficult but you are wrong.

To apply traveling visa of North Korea is EASY. A lot of website said that you should wait for two weeks. You only need 7 days during Arirang Festival.

There only two steps to apply for traveling to North Korea.

1.send the personal information(14days before the tour during Arirang festival 5-7 days before the tour.

2.come to Dandong one day before the tour. Hand in your passport and passport photos (2)

then the second day you can start the tour in the morning at the customs of Dandong