By Sandra @ NKnews,
I wish to share with the readers of this blog the account of my train journey from Moscow to Pyongyang. I have chosen to dedicate this blog to the people of Korea, however today I feel compelled to relate a very personal experience that remains by far the most extraordinary but also the most adventurous journey I have ever done.
The most common way for Westerners to cross the North Korean border (when I say common, I mean legally cross the border) is to either fly to Pyongyang or take a train from Beijing. Because for some reason, I never go for what is easy and comfortable, I decided to take the trans-Siberian in Moscow and travel all the way to Pyongyang. After all, if I was crazy enough to spend my money on a holiday in the hermit kingdom, I might as well be crazy all the way and take the train to North Korea. I have to add that I am a young woman and that I was traveling alone. I must admit I was very ill prepared for the journey and did not know what to expect from the train experience. All I knew is that it was going to take exactly 7 days to reach the capital of North Korea and that I must not forget instant coffee (though I dislike it) – because coffee in the wagon restaurant was going to be expensive.
I have to say I did expect to find the train full of foreign backpackers traveling throughout Russia/Siberia and China and that is why I had chosen to travel second-class, so that I could share my compartment with three other happy tourists or Russian travelers and surely not be stuck with the same person for a week. No offense, but I did not want to end up in the same compartment with a North Korean man. Well, you know when you really don’t want something to happen but it does? What I had not realized is that you go where your wagon goes. The last two wagons of the trans-Siberian Moscow-Beijing are detached from the main locomotive in Shenyang (China) then attached to the white train that comes from Beijing.
The train left on a Friday evening at around midnight. Not knowing what to do with my luggage, which was very heavy because, of course, I am a girl therefore I do not know what it means to travel light; I spent the day waiting on the bench at the station and I can tell you, in Moscow, international train stations are nothing like St Pancras, there is literally nothing to see, nothing to do except to wait and drink tea. At the end of the day as we were getting closer to departure, I spotted two not very tall Asian men in the waiting room. I remember how I was praying: “Please God, I do not want to share the compartment with them, please no no no!!!” However, when I got on the train to my horror there were not two but a dozen of North Korean men in my compartment with bags and boxes all over the place… I was horrified. However, it turns out that they were only there to board their stuff and help the actual traveler board his many bags. Later, after the train had departed, he found out that I was also traveling to Pyongyang, and asked, in Russian, a young Russian girl who was traveling with her mother why I was going to North Korea. However, her English being quite limited – the communication was not very clear and he did not understand her so he took his mobile phone and called somebody in Korean: “there is a young woman on the train to Pyongyang, how is that possible?” My Korean is not great but it was good enough to understand what he was saying.
I could not sleep that night. My bench was opposite to that of the North Korean man and he kept stretching his arm on the table that separated the two benches. I was petrified. I got up at 5 and so did most of the travelers in the wagon. I decided that I did not want to sleep next to that man and therefore put my backpack on the top bench above his. He spent the whole day asking me to change beds and come back and sleep next to him. He was far from being a very attractive man, but was rather scary looking and very ill mannered. Because I had decided to leave the compartment door open, no matter what, some time in the morning he closed the door and made me sit in front of him so we could have a little chat… I have to say that by this stage, my travel companion had already not missed a chance to touch my thighs and behind when he could… He had a phrasebook opened on the table. Turns out he was a doctor. The phrasebook was outdated like pretty much everything in North Korea, he pointed at questions in English: “how old are you”, “where are you from”, “what do you do”, “are you married”; I answered in English and turned back the questions so I found out he was a doctor, was married and with one child. He then showed me an old picture of colleagues of his, but strangely not of his family. Then he asked me if I wanted a massage, I said I wanted to open the door, he refused, I refused the massage. He said: “I am a doctor” and I thought: “I don’t care who you are, I don’t need a massage just open the door please!” He then tried again and asked me if I wanted to share a bottle of vodka with him, I refused, whisky? I refused… Finally, he decided that our little conversation was over and I could open the door again.
As I was reading my book on the top bench later, he received a phone call on his mobile and repeated all the things I had said. He had no clue I could actually understand everything he said and I thought if I survive this trip, there is no way MI5 will not hire me… I felt like a spy for a brief moment but not a very brave one I have to say, I was scared and dreaded the moment we would all go to sleep and lock the compartment door again… My travel companion shared his lunch with me and the other North Korean man who got on the train in Moscow.
He was a translator for a North Korean company doing construction work in Russia, his English was much better than that of the doctor but they were speaking Korean most of the time and I played dull. I was also very annoyed to see that the interpreter had a compartment on his own and I could not understand why the doctor would not leave me alone in the compartment and go stay with him, isn’t what any other educated man would do? I decided not to go to sleep and stay awake during the night and sleep during the day, it seemed like a safer option. But I am a Christian and I was praying and God heard my prayers. I met two tourists in the first-class wagon also going to North Korea. The very same day a group of 7 Russian students going to study Chinese in China moved from first class to our wagon. That evening as I was in line for the toilet they asked me if I wanted to have a drink with them and I accepted immediately. We ended up partying most of the night in the wagon restaurant as one of them was having her birthday. The good thing was, as there were 7 seven students they had a free bed which they offered me. The other good thing is that they were traveling to China and I could therefore spend 5 nights with them. The lady in charge of the wagon, a kind of train conductor with extended responsibilities, was not very happy about it (I was disrupting the order of the wagon I imagine) and kept pointing at my original compartment. Eventually, when we crossed the Russian and Chinese borders I had to return to the doctor’s.
Now, leaving my little adventure on the side for a moment, I must tell you more about Siberia and North Koreans. I was very surprised to see what a huge and organized network North Koreans have established in Siberia. At practically every major station, there was a crowd of North Koreans waiting either to get on the train (I mean our wagon), to greet friends who were already on the train or to give them boxes to take home. They carried various kinds of goods from chocolate to painting material and for the doctor, medical instruments. Also, like any good Korean from the North or from the South, they never visited the restaurant wagon restaurant because they had their rice and kimchi packed in boxes, which they kept at the back of their wagon. I have to say that the food smell combined to the cold tobacco (because they would always go smoke at the back of the wagon), which came out of the air vents was not the most pleasant one. When we crossed the Russian border, the Russian customs officer gave my travel companion a hard time. He was in fact carrying huge wads of cash from different currencies: Euros, Dollars, Roubles, Yuans and North Korean Won (I wonder what the heck he is going to do with all that now with the ban on foreign currencies, hard time for the elite!). He had bought expensive handbags, chocolate, liquors, clothe, medical equipment etc and I wondered if any sanction on North Korea would ever be effective. The Russian closed his eyes but the doctor had a wad of won ready for the North Korean customs. In China, the North Koreans bought South Korean blankets and snacks.
The day came when the Russian students left me all alone with a huge crowd of North Korean men in the wagon. They had fortunately negotiated with the conductor and I got a compartment to myself for my last night on the train. That night the two last wagons, first and second-class, were detached from the trans-Siberian and were left on the track in Shenyang for about 6 hours. The night was hot and I was afraid. I was afraid because I was alone and I was going to cross the border alone. I was afraid because I was carrying a bible. I was afraid because I had taken with me a very detailed map of the Korean peninsula; I decided to throw it away. I left my compartment once to go to the bathroom and saw two North Korean men standing in their underwear in front of the toilet and I ran back to my compartment and locked the door. I have to confess that at this time of waiting to cross into North Korea as the sun was slowing rising and the train finally on its way again, I never felt lonelier and wondered why in the world I had decided to do this (like I had been asking myself pretty much every day of the journey anyway).
We first crossed the Chinese border and I got new travel companions, a whole bunch of elderly people got on the wagon and three North Korean ladies in their 60s, 70s and 80s came into my compartment. They shared their lunch with me but I still pretended that I did not speak any Korean. One of them kept praising the Dear Leader as the journey continued and as the sun set again they were on the look out for electricity in the buildings, whenever they saw light they nodded “ they do have electricity after all”. These ladies had Chinese passports with special North Korean papers and were on the train back a week later with me and the other tourists.
I just wish to share a little bit more about my actual crossing at Sinuiju. Coming from China the train crosses a bridge and as I was sitting backwards moving away from China, I felt again very intimidated. The crossing went well (obviously) but I got fully searched: books, camera etc. They took away my mobile phone (I had removed the sim card and hid it in my sock), I had also let the battery die so they could not use it. I got my mobile back a week later and the soldier who had taken it away called out my name in the wagon “ where are you?”, we shook hands and he said that we were friends. I had a temperature when we crossed the border and I was afraid that after all that hassle they would keep me in quarantine or send me back to China but they let me pass. Anyway, when I think about it the closest thing there is in Sinuiju to a quarantine room must be an interrogating room or a prison.
Now I must finally end with a funny (at least to me) anecdote is that the next day when I and the group who had flown the next day, visited the monument of Kim Il-sung I saw the doctor with his wife and daughter. He had flowers in his hands surely to thank the great leader for all the goodies he had bought in Russia and China including the medical equipment, which is crucially lacking in North Korea even in Pyongyang apparently…
The tour organizer also told me that there were lots of Russian prostitutes on the trans-Siberian train and that the doctor probably thought he could have a go at me.
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