The day we caught the train to North Korea

The sign on the carriage read “Beijing-Pyongyang”. Finally we were on our way to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The first leg, overnight to the Chinese border town – Dandong, passed uneventfully as we had a few beers, chatted to the other people on the tour, the guides Gareth and Richie, and the former North Korean ambassador to Australia.

In the morning, we waited at Dandong for 2 hours for border formalities and as they coupled our 2 carriages to the North Korean train. After a long wait (which Jo managed to sleep through), the train trundled off across the bridge and onto North Korean soil. We pulled into a turquoise-painted station, which looked like it was from a bygone era, with the face of the Great Leader Kim Il-sung smiling benevolently down at us.

The border guards got on to check our paperwork, and to inspect our belongings. You can take mobile phones into the country, however the border guard has to wrap up the phone carefully so you can’t use it and document everything. Not that you can actually use the phone even if you wanted to. But what they really don’t like is GPS. One of our travelling companions had an iPad – which the guards amused themselves with for a while until they saw a map on it. It took 20 minutes to convince them that there was no GPS on it, and finally they agreed to seal it up like the mobile phones. We later heard about someone who had a $2000 camera confiscated because of GPS capabilities.

With all the paperwork done, we popped out into the station waiting room – which had a very convenient micro-brewery attached. 9am, less than 1 hour in North Korea, and we were drinking a brew which tasted distinctly of apples, while taking sneaky peeks out over the town square (although officially we weren’t allowed to look!).

Back on the train, we trundled slowly towards the capital city – Pyongyang. It would take nearly 10 hours to travel the 225 km/140 miles. Yes, at 14 miles per hour, North Korean trains are not exactly high-speed. We got our first glance of the lush green countryside, some small, concrete-built towns and wandered along the train. In the restaurant car, we had our first Kim Chi in country and second and third Korean beers.

It was dark when we pulled into the station in Pyongyang. The digital clock on the platform read “19:45″. Strangely, it did feel like we’d arrived back in time in 1945…