So, I'm looking at a tour package to North Korea

[HEyHEY]

I met a guy who organizes trips to Pyong Yang for westerners. I'm not sure if I'll get a visa though. I have a history as a westerner report and work in media here. So, that may prevent me from getting in. He says I can just say I'm an english teacher, but that worries me in case they give me a visa, then arrest me as a spy or something once there.

All that said, I REALLY want to go to the DPRK. I've heard it's the creepiest place in the world, and just going would be an interesting adventure. However, your entire tour is "guided" and if you stray off the tour.... they shoot you.

What do you guys think? Is it worth fibbing on my application?

[struggle4progress]

1. I've never done anything like that myself. Some ideas:

Can you get consular advice?
Will you have a pre-arranged itinerary that you can copy to several friends before going?
Will you have a way to call/contact a few friends regularly to report briefly where you are?

I know nothing about the SKorean authorities or how likely they are to shoot you for infractions. I would guess outright lies are probably much worse than misty truths: the latter can always be made clearer and more accurate as necessary

[LeftyMom]

2. North Korea.

If "the SKorean authorities" want you dead, they'll sell you one of their little deathtrap cars. ;)

[struggle4progress]

3. That's probably about the right attitude. But people have gotten in over their heads

by lying to various authorities in the past. A good example is the "Mata Hari," a Dutch girl much given to embellishing her past whenever it was convenient -- convenient usually meaning that she got another extra fifteen minutes of attention by dissembling. She managed to get herself shot as a spy during WWI, not because she was actually a spy, but probably because someone found it convenient to point the finger at her to protect another spy -- and her habit of lying left and right to make herself more glamorous ensured that the wartime suspicion, once cast, began to seem credible to the authorities

<edit:> Oops! Now I see what my misteak wuz! :blush:

[Drunken Irishman]

4. What if you don't come back?

:(

[JVS]

5. Don't fuck around with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Tell the truth, or they could well fuck your shit up.

[HEyHEY]

11. Yeah, though I'm told if I get a visa that's the end of it

They do all their snooping before hand. But, still, how do I know they don't lure me their then haul my ass in to prison as a spy or something. It's tricky, I REALLY want to go.

[JVS]

6. Did you hear that Kim Jong Il has a twitter account. Maybe you should become his buddy before going

[HEyHEY]

8. haha "Wanna get some beers when I arrive?"

I know what MY new facebook shot would be.

[Kali]

7. Are you teaching English?

Lies can be hard to maintain.

[HEyHEY]

9. Socially, yes. :-)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

10. I'd do it

It's a once in a lifetime chance.

[Kali]

17. me too

but I can pull off the dumbass tourist type of shit - got in over my head. If he has readily available press credentials and tries to hide them...might see more than he really wants (like prison). But it would be a hell of an experience for a writer!

[Swede]

12. If it's Tuesday we must be in the DMZ?

I would stay away,if I was you buddy.

[XemaSab]

13. Do you want to go as a person or as a reporter?

If they google your name, will they know you're lying? :shrug:

[HEyHEY]

19. Yeah, I come up

I can't go as a reporter. Maybe I should just be honest and hope they accept my visa.

[jeff30997]

14. I wouldn't go there if I were you.

Well,I'm not but please be careful man.

Peace.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

15. You may want to brush up on your Chinese

because if KJI keeps acting like such a putz, the Red Army and a few tank battalions may huff and puff and blow down his northern border. I doubt that the Chinese have much more patience to extend to K-Shizzle.

[HEyHEY]

20. I live in China

So the brushing up is going on full steam. The chinese are finished with him, he offers nothing to them.

[Aristus]

16. Are you going to see the Ryugyong Hotel?

Chance of a lifetime, man...



Ugliest building in the world, and the world's tallest uninhabited structure...

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

18. A hotel - a place for guests and travelers

to eat and drink, to serve as a place to reconnoiter after seeing the sights and shopping and gallivanting about the picturesque countryside. An oasis for business travelers, journalists, tourists and the teeming millions come to see your country, Can there be a more useless thing to build in xenophobic, paranoid North Korea? This the macro-scale equivalent of a fur sink or a platinum plated birdcage filled with goat manure.

As an aside, K-Shizzle has got to be a genius of some sort. How anyone can manage to keep a country packed to its very gills with normally enterprising and hard-working Koreans dirt poor has a gift for something other than picking a ridiculous haircut. Exhibit A: South Korea, the most wired country on earth.

Is it the biggest unoccupied structure on earth? I thought Ceaucescu's monumental palace held that honor, though the Romanians may have sensibly blown it up or subdivided it in to the world's most luxurious office building.

[Aristus]

22. Here's some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel

I like the part about "relaxed oversight." Yeah, in North Korea... :eyes:

I have to say this is quite the amazing enterprise to be undertaken in a country where marching in military parades and starving to death seem to be the national pastimes...

[HEyHEY]

21. If I go, I'm told we stay on some island in the middle of the river.

[XemaSab]

24. Looks like a Mormon temple

:hide:

[HEyHEY]

26. Similar repressive bullshit!

[NoPasaran]

23. If you're thinking about vacationing somewhere you risk being shot

If you're thinking about vacationing somewhere you risk being shot for wandering away, you might want to consider Louisiana instead. I'm sure the food's a lot better.

[Starry Messenger]

25. I'd go in a heartbeat.

The travelogues I've read of the guided tour sound like that experience in itself is pretty surreal.