Glimpse into North Korea

Moving to the North Korean border

Today, we move on to Dandong on China’s border with North Korea.  With sunrise around 0400 in this part of China, I didn’t mind booking the early train leaving at 0827 leaving from Shenyang station, as opposed to Shenyang North where we had arrived yesterday.

Surprisingly, there was no ticket check entering the station and the only check was upon entry to the platform.

Arriving at Dandong at 0950, I noticed signs and announcements include the Korean language.  Despite the proximity on the map to our homestay, we were glad we took a car, as it wasn’t that walkable.

The foyer of the high-rise building was a mess, hiding the fact that the homestay was actually lovely.  The homestay lounge looked onto the river and across to North Korea.  It was the perfect spot for a KFC delivery early lunch.

Sweet-talked

It was still too early to access our room as the previous guests hadn’t checked out.  So, around 1130, we left our bags in the lounge area and went out to explore the countryside sights.

My idea was to go to the Great Wall at Tiger Mountain and also a viewpoint where the river narrows greatly so that we would be just a few metres from North Korea.

With that in mind, we ordered a car to take us to the Great Wall at Tiger Mountain.  A nice lady driver turned up and sweet-talked us into a longer excursion covering more viewpoints and possibilities for boat rides.

She suggested that Tiger Mountain would be too hot at this time and suggested we do the other things first.

Boat trip

As we left the city centre, we saw apartment blocks in North Korea which didn’t look lived in.  She confirmed that at night, all the lights come on simultaneously at the same time every night.

Less than an hour after we started, we stopped at a place where we were slightly a stream-width across from North Korea.

And less than 2h after leaving the city, we came to a wide part of the river where there was a broken bridge.  Here, boat trips were available on the river on a big boat or on a small speedboat.  The latter was too expensive without other guests.  Our driver recommended that the big boat was better done from a place further upriver as there was more to see.

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We continued about 10 mins by car to the second pier where we did a 30 min boat ride close to the North Korean side.  There was a seemingly intact bridge linking the two sides but I was told that there is no international crossing there.  Most of the industrial buildings on the North Korean side were dilapidated but the only one that was churning out smoke, we were told, was a cigarette factory.

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Great Wall at Tiger Mountain

On the drive back, we passed a pink stretch of road that was textured so that if one drives at a constant speed, the different textures would produce a different hum like playing a song.

We stopped at a stall that sold dried seafood (from the Yellow Sea rather than the Yalu River) and I bought some fresh delicious nectarines and plums.  The dried strawberries were delicious but fresh is best!  The stone-fruit here are nicely ripened and protected on the trees with a paper wrap, perhaps suggesting there’s no strong usage of pesticides.

It was about 1600 by the time we stopped at the Great Wall at Tiger Mountain.  This part of the wall is now considered the eastern end of the Great Wall of China. This overrides earlier evidence that the eastern end is Shanhaiguan.

It is largely rebuilt as it was found in a very bad state.  In the crazy heat, knowing that the climb was arduous, we decided to just move on.  It’s funny that our original destination on the outing became just a momentary stop.

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It was quite a nice outing with the friendly, chatty driver in her electric car.  She said that she took it on a 52-day family road trip all the way to Sanya in the south of Hainan Island and had no problems finding charging stations whenever they needed it.

When the time came for us to pay, the price was a bit higher than what we had expected.  As I let D take charge in China due to his superior language skills and it is his homeland, I didn’t protest.

He was a little tired at that time but realised a bit later that the total may have been a bit inflated.  But I didn’t want to make him feel bad and said it was OK for such a long outing, including waiting time and excellent service.  In these times, I try not to think of the total amount but the price difference.

Broken Bridge

Back in the city, on the waterfront, we needed a rest and a comfort stop.  We found a café and the iced coffees were about CNY32 (NZD8) each!  That’s like two simple meals in China.  And despite the high price, we had to wait for it to be made and take it upstairs to our seats upstairs ourselves.

When I had sufficiently rested, I wanted to go walk on the Broken Bridge that used to link Dandong to the North Korean side until the link was cut off by the 1950 American Bombing.

D preferred to rest, so I went after having allowed my online ticket to become active (supposedly about an hour).

A new bridge runs parallel to the Broken Bridge and serves as the sole remaining link between the two countries over the Yalu River.

The Broken Bridge was busy with tourists and I was disappointed that the limit of one’s access is one section before where the bridge has been broken.  I had hoped to get better view of the other side of the bridge and the North Korean side.

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We finished the day with a simple Korean dinner in a North Korean restaurant serving North Korean beer.  Apparently, they strongly dislike South Koreans and will not serve them in their restaurant.