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Tour leaders Jamie Cheung (left) and Rubio Chan.Photo: K. Y. Cheng

North Korea lesson one: Hong Kong travel firm offers holidays to Pyongyang's schools for the first time

North Korea

A Hong Kong tour group will give 32 travellers the chance to visit schools and kindergartens in North Korea for the first time as part of a tour behind the walls of Kim Jong-un's hermit state.

Two tours, running from October 16 to 24, will take visitors from Shenyang in mainland China down to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

READ MORE: Pyongyang airport's new internet cafe lacks keyboards, internet

"We wanted in-depth tourism, an alternative to mainstream tourism, so [we thought] North Korea is the place that can provide the biggest contrast between imagination and reality," said tour founder Rubio Chan.

Since summer last year, Chan and Jamie Cheung have been running tours through North Korea with their company Glo Travel. They have taken about 200 locals, expats and exchange students from Hong Kong to view a country ruled by the world's most reclusive regime.

But Chan said their October trip would offer the most in-depth look at the country yet, including tours of schools and kindergartens, as well as longer walking excursions in North Korean city centres, supervised by guides. Tour members would even be able to read text books used by the country's pupils.

Cheung said despite the regime's reputation for violence and repression, tours of North Korea were relatively safe.

"Normal problems that happen in other societies like robberies and pickpocketing do not happen to tourists. Political security is another issue, but as long as you don't touch on those issues you'll be fine."

When one client asked a North Korean tour guide about their labour camps and political prisoners, Chan said the response was benign.

"Firstly they say they don't know about it," he said. "Secondly they say those people didn't love their country so they were sent to these places.

"They don't really show emotion. This was not the first time they were asked."

Tourism is still relatively new in North Korea. Worldwide there are only about 20 agencies, including others in Hong Kong, that operate tours there.

There are two options for Hongkongers travelling with Glo Travel: they can go by plane or, if they want to take in the scenery, by train. The flight tour costs HK$10,380 each, while the train is HK$10,880.

Both itineraries take tourists to Pyongyang before moving to Pyongsong, and then Kaesong near the South Korean border.

Chan said there was always an intense debate among clients about whether it was ethical to visit a country widely regarded as a brutal dictatorship. He said the tours exist based on "a belief that engagement will work, rather than isolation".

"In the 1990s there was virtually no tourism and the regime still survived, so it's not really about whether tourism will sustain the regime."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Intrepid tourists venture into N Korean schools
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