Life after sailing around the world

The boy who grew up

The fall season was on us. 

My broken foot prevented me from any more work. I was released from my job as a seaman, and sent home.

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, me on the right under the bow.

This made for one more interrupted career path. There would be many more interruptions until I grew up.

The first thing I wanted to do on my return was to restore my mobility by car.

The Moskvitch 1954

It had been standing in My grandfather's back yard all summer, in clear view. It had been broken into and I found a used condom in the rear seat. Nothing was visibly damaged, but the battery was totally discharged. I was glad that I’d had the wisdom to remove the distributor rotor and put it in a drawer in my room.

No hot-wiring or starter motor run could make the engine go.

How to start it? The concept of using a booster cable was not a good one, as I knew of no person that may have had one.

Let’s do a push start. My uncle pitched in as did a stranger we met in the street.

What are the necessary actions to start a dead car?

First, push the car fast enough so that I could jump in, put it in second gear and pop the clutch. We did this time and again. The engine turned a few revolutions and then the momentum was used up.

One more push, harder than ever.

As I pushed my very hardest, I felt how the metal bar got dislodged and dug itself into my leg, but the car was rolling faster than ever. A few chugs, and the engine started.

I sat there, in the driver’s seat, carefully tending to the accelerator and the choke and – then I felt it – my foot was getting warm-wet. 

Blood.

I knew it, the metal bar had come loose and cut my leg, inside the plaster cast.

What first, get the car going on its own power or tend to my bleeding leg?

The car won.

I drove it around for a while, making sure that the charging ampere meter always was in a positive position. As the blood pooled on the floor, I made up my mind, I need professional help.

I drove to the hospital emergency clinic. I parked the car, left it to idle and I asked for help to get in.

By now there was quite a puddle of blood on the floor by the driver’s seat. My cast was, of course, broken and useless.

My home town hospital didn’t have any idea of what was inside that cast, so I was X-rayed, again.

The broken bone seemed almost whole. The decision was made – take the cast off.

It was done, and the source of the bleeding was found and quickly sealed, a nasty cut on my skin.

A couple of hours later I hobbled outside to my still idling car, with a huge white wrapping on one leg.

The car was running, I said that, but also surrounded by a cloud of steam. The radiator was boiling.

Now I had to trust the battery. This engine must be shut down.

There I was. 

My life was no better. I stood outside the hospital in quite a bit of pain from my now unsupported foot and with a sick car. 

Would it start again?

One of the hospital caretakers saw me in my despair with the still steaming car and brought out a bucket of water. A little later, the engine had cooled enough that I could add to the radiator – and start the car.

That was worth it, I am now a man with wheels again.

Fortunately, not enough water had boiled off to do any damage to the engine, it was still as wheezy and powerless as always, but without any new clicking sounds from burned-out internals.

Home again, boredom soon set in. And an abject lack of funds, of course.

This summer of 1959 had been the warmest anyone could remember, the grounds were burned brown, and many leaves had fallen early. I had seen nothing of it, I had been away all summer.

I took my mother and sister for one last beach visit of the year, in my car, of course.

Then summer ended, early.

What to do? My friends were, mostly, in school or away, somewhere.

I soon learned to walk in such a way that the break in my foot wasn’t too aggravated. Perhaps I limped, but I really tried not to.

I, as always, read all the newspapers I could lay hands on, especially the job ads.

“Volvo needs welders for its local factory. Union wages.”

It was probably the word “wages” that got me thinking. I can do that, for wages.

I went to the plant office, located in a long-abandoned sugar mill in the harbour. As I walked in, I could see and remember some of the sugarbeet handling equipment from my earlier visits, much of it still in place but very dusty by now.

I passed muster at the interview and was hired.

“My job?”

To run a spot-welding operation on the rear door frame of the Volvo Duett station wagon.

First, I was taught, in the backroom, how to weld properly. Easy, just clamp two pieces of metal together and then squeeze the trigger.

This released the current that would melt the metal and make a huge squirt of sparks fly.

I like this. You can certainly see and feel what you are doing.

This job was done with heavy leather gloves and a full cover clear plastic face mask, to keep your eyes safe.

This was the introduction to welding, all done before lunch-time.

"Did you bring your lunch?" 

"Noooo, should I?"

A couple of guys took pity on me and shared some of their sandwiches.

Now, the production line. My moment was almost at the end of the assembly of the clear metal, still unpainted bodies.

The car body was suspended from the ceiling and moved by an automatic belt to a holding place. I had to push a button to make the next body move forward to my location. Once at rest there, I had to pick up a rather flimsy frame and fit it in the right place at the rear end of the open body.

I didn’t quite get it right the first times, but my supervisor stood nearby and quickly ground off my first weld.

”Do it again.”

At this time the pace became furious, I had spent too much time welding and cutting off again.

Next. I got that one affixed and could continue with the 20-some welding operations.

I’m good at this.

All the production workers were paid per piece made. The system was set up to encourage you to work faster, finish more activities and earn more.

The union had exactly the opposite idea; Make as few cars as you can and get as much money as possible.

How was the piece rate set?

A “time-keeper” came from the office and stood behind for a while you as you worked away. He would then establish a going rate. That would be your salary per piece.

Now – big conflict.

I was, obviously for the union members, working far too fast. I didn’t smoke and I didn’t take any smoke breaks.

The union boss came and told me, “you must take breaks, sit down and eat an apple”.

Our garden had lots of pear trees and they drop in the fall.

I brought a bag of pears the next day and took my “smoke-breaks”, eating a juicy pear.

We seem to be at peace here; I am not too fast for the union, but still good enough for the production supervisor.

A few days went by in peace. I knew some of my coworkers., We were all locals. I brought sandwiches, made by mother, and life seemed good.

But – what am I doing here, in the dungeons of a dark, noisy and smelly car factory? Am I making any impression on the world at all?

No, I am not. I just anonymously put a piece on the body, which disappears out of my view, only to show up in the street as a brand new car in a few weeks, or so.

How can I ever recognize that cars that I helped make?

I know, mark it.

One of my 20ish weld spots could be on the side, cutting a half-moon out of the metal. That would certainly identify which cars I have made. I would be able to walk down the street, for years to come, look at the rear loading door and see my cut-out.

MY CAR.

Not so fast.

A few days later I had a personal visit by one of the Quality Control supervisors;

“Some of the bodies you welded on have too many welding mistakes. They are very expensive to fix in the paint shop. You must learn to make fewer mistakes.”

And so ended my career as a unionized auto worker. The pay was good, though.

Home again. The darkness of winter closed in.

I had nothing real to do and the city was continually enveloped in the fogs of winter.

I did the laundry. I washed the floors. I took out the garbage and … not much more.

One day, I tried to stay in bed. It was dark and gloomy outside and very quiet in my room, facing the backyard.

I slept on and off all day.

After dinner, I decided to go to bed for the night.

That didn’t work. I couldn’t sleep any more. My body was already as rested as it could be.

The next day, a bit groggy from my sleepless night I decided, this cannot go on.

I am not making any impression on the world.

I went for a long walk in town, looking at all the storefronts. Could I work there? Would they take me?

All the errand boy jobs I had done in younger years had told me a lot about retailing, it is boring and repetitive.

This was the year when our area would finally get Swedish television. A new TV-tower was erected some 100 km away and would start transmitting this fall.

The city was in a TV-craze. It seemed as if everyone was buying a TV.

TV set 1959

That’s new and exciting. What can I do?

“Sure, we need a TV-antenna installer, you are hired. How soon can you start? Tomorrow?”

Yes, I did. I was assigned to work with an experienced installer. He had at one time been a chimney sweep and knew about roofs.

We would assemble all the components, carry it all up many flights of stairs to the attic, and lay it all down there.

Roof antenna

Now, find the roof-hatch and climb out on the roof. 

The antenna is to be attached to the chimney. The down-lead goes, properly supported across the roof, down the side of the building. When you get to the right window, you take the cord, drill a hole in the wall and stick it through.

That sounded easy.

Nobody had mentioned that it rained some days, making the brick-roofs unbelievably slippery…

… and …

Nobody knew anything about safety harnesses or how to stay on the roof, safely.

Ohh, did the adrenaline run through my veins, standing unsupported on the roof, holding onto the chimney with one hand and a screwdriver with the other, sometimes five stories above ground.

Getting the supports screwed in at the side of the buildings was no easy task, either. We would have a ladder, almost three stores tall. Get up there and do your job.

A couple of weeks in, on the first page of our local newspaper.

“TV antenna installer fallen to his death.”

This had happened in the next city block from where we had worked that day. Sure, we had heard the ambulance but had no idea.

My mother stepped in, raised her voice, called the store owner, a childhood friend of hers and – my antenna-installer career ended.

The department of labour visited all the TV-stores in town. All installation work was temporarily halted until all suitable persons had received safety training and been equipped with ropes and harnesses.

Safety harness

The costs went up, but no young man had to die for the joy of watching Swedish TV programs after that. (Actually “program”, there was only one channel.)

For quite obvious reasons, I didn’t volunteer for any more installation jobs, my life was too precious for that.

This didn’t make me unemployed. My next job for the company was to deliver TVs. The owner bought a brand new VW van, painted white with a prominent TV antenna sign on each front door.

This sign was designed by my younger sister, she was, after all, the artist in my family.

VW van 1959

Anyone who has ever driven one of those VW vans know how pleasant they are to drive. You sit far up, see well and the steering wheel is almost horizontal in your lap. The abject lack of brute engine power doesn’t matter in town.

I liked to drive that van.

The town is small, but I used to arrange my deliveries to maximize the driving distance, start in the east end, then deliver in the west part of town, etc.

A couple of weeks of this and my joy was curtailed. The owner had a list of where I had been and read the odometer.

“Why did you drive so far, Bengt?”

All future delivery drives were much shorter.

But my military driver training was still of some use. I could back into the most narrow driveways without scratching the van, or could I?

One day I scratched the bumper. The van came in blue from the factory, the white was painted on at the dealer.

I scraped off some of the wite paint and returned with a blue streak on the edge of the bumper.

“You are not allowed to back in anywhere. Just carry the TVs a little farther.

This job became a bit of a routine.

One day we, me and a helper, were going out of town. This was long before the days of seat belts, speed limits, or stop signs. Our day was going well and the load lightened as the hours went by.

Then, in an intersection, it happened. A man came at an incredible speed, could barely slow down and hit the rear of my van.

DKW 3/6 1959, similar to the one wrecked against the VW van

We swung around, the two of us were unhurt, but the van was in the ditch, badly dented.

The other driver stepped out, full of remorse.

“This isn’t my car, I borrowed it for the day and was just testing it to see how fast it would go.”

Obviously far too fast for him to see the road ahead of him. It had spun around and was a total loss, steam spewing from the radiator and gasoline running out the other end, from the broken fuel tank.

The fire department came. They sprayed water over it all, the engine, the inside of the car and the rear end, for good measure.

My assistant was a man of very shady character, I knew that. He stepped out of the van, found out that all were well and – laid down in the middle of the road.

“I am injured, call an ambulance.”

The ambulance came and the attendants put his limp body on a stretcher.

I had to stay with our van and safeguard the remaining TVs, some were slightly dented, and await the owner of the store.

When he arrived, he surveyed the scene but said nothing to me, not a word. We transferred the TVs, I handed the keys to the tow-truck and we proceed home in his car.

That evening, the phone rang.

It was my “injured” friend. He wanted to see me at the local beer hall.

He showed no signs of his injuries of a few hours ago but told me that I would be sued for everything I had for “life-altering injuries”.

I slept poorly that night. 

Little did I know that that was the last I ever saw of him, he soon ended up in jail.

The police called me in for an interview the next day and said, in passing, that my colleague had been arrested at his home early that morning. He was wanted for a break-and-entry but had avoided them until he showed up at the hospital.

Coming in as a victim of a traffic accident he had been identified. Since he had no noticeable injuries of any kind, he was told to stay at home for the night.

He hadn’t stayed home, for sure.

My police interview confirmed that I was not at guilt. The other driver had to go to court a few weeks later. He was sentenced to pay 25 daily fines of 2 kronor for his speedy drive.

Yes, for 25 days running, he had to show up at the courthouse, pay his fine and leave.

I wonder what the owner of the car said, it was not insured.

Now, my career in the TV industry had ended, for good. The owner got the van repaired and hired another young man to drive it. Apparently, he must have driven better, that van stayed in town for many years, and looked neither dented nor scratched.

Home again, without any hope or future. What impact on the world have I made?

Next?

By now, I was quite happy to have a little money to spend. I after all had my trusty Russian car to look after. That requires funds for gas and since it was soon winter, anti freeze for the radiator. It never boiled again.

So what came next?

The harbour. This was an important export port for Swedish cut lumber shipped all over Europe on coastal carriers.

I got hired by a stevedoring firm, not to do any stevedoring but even better, (?) to stamp the shipper’s name on the ends of every single plank before it was loaded for export.

This was not a job for the lazy. I started long before sunrise and, equipped with an industrial size ink pad and a stamp, stamped planks.

Everyone had to be stamped, leave none.

It was dark when I started and dark at the end of the day, again. I was fully exposed to the rain and sleet of the season, very cold and, worst of all, it was a totally lonesome job. There was nobody to talk to except during our three short breaks for morning coffee, lunch, and afternoon coffee. I didn’t drink coffee but carried hot cocoa in a thermos instead.

There is no way for me to recall how long that lasted. Weeks, months, years or eons of forever?

Finally, this shipment of wood had all been labeled and went into, or onto, a few cargo ships. My job ended, for now.

“We start again in a week.”

Do I have to?

Yes, I want money, don’t I?

A friend of mine, the son of the chief editor of the local newspaper, mentioned about how hard it was for him to edit the local telephone directory, issued once a year.

You could do that for me this year, Bengt

Sure, I did.

We were two, taking turns, reading the names and numbers out loud from our competitor's telephone book, and checking for accuracy on the printed proof-sheet. 

This was inside, in an office with warm, free coffee or tea, surrounded by pretty young things. Paradise?

Yes, it was. 

I soon dated one of the girls in the office. We knew each other from High School and got along swimmingly.

She was the cause for me almost setting our home on fire.

Yes, it was close. We were only saved from that disaster when my mother came home and found the melting aluminum pot on the red-hot electric stove. The painted wall nearby was smoking.

This girl had come to my room, for a cup of tea. The tea water on the stove was soon forgotten as we engaged in other, more urgent personal matters. We were just getting out of bed again when my mother came home.

I may have learned about priorities then. First, tend to the pot on the hot stove, then…

Don’t laugh, it wasn’t funny even if it felt good.

The editing job wasn’t forever. Next, I was offered to deliver newspapers.

This certainly offered none of the previous benefits, there weren’t even any pretty girls, this was run by an old, retired newsprint type setter.

I had to wake up at 04:00 to be standing, ready to get my cargo in the office at 4:30 am.

At first, I used my scooter, but it soon slowed to a crawl and wouldn’t run well. After that, I had only my bicycle with a wooden box.

There were about 125 newspapers on my run, all to be delivered before 06:30 am.

Sure, I ran fast up and down the stairs, very few buildings had elevators. 

Oh, the characters you meet at that early hour.

Some were shift workers that had to clock in at 07:00. One or two would stand inside the front door and literally tear the paper out of my hand and stick it under their tunic as they rushed to jump on their mopeds and drive to work, leaving a huge blue cloud of exhaust behind them.

There were two building managers, both too cheap to pay for their own subscriptions. They would expect me to put an extra, unpaid for, newspaper in their mailbox.

“I cannot do that.”

The next morning the main entrance was locked, with the caretaker in view. I had to bang long and hard until he, slowly, turned his head towards the door, and very slowly unlocked it from the inside.

“No hard words, but you must understand that it is worth something for you that the door is unlocked at this early hour.”

I understood and put a paper in his apartment door mailbox, as did all the other newspaper boys too. There were three daily newspapers in this 12,000-inhabitant town, and three separate early morning delivery systems, like mine.

Am I making an impression on the world now?

How about my scooter that gave up its breath? It really worried me. I hadn’t driven it much since I got the car, but still.

Parilla scooter 1958

When it got a little lighter in the approaching springtime, I attempted to take the muffler off. It was so full of carbonated soot that it took a long time to chisel it out. Driving a two-stroke engine short distances in the winter will condense part of the exhaust inside the muffler. Lesson learned.

Keep it hot.

I soon had to, because I traded my much-loved Russian beauty for a used VW, and that cost more than I could afford. Bad move on my part.

VW 1954

The dealer took the VW back.

I now rode my scooter enough to keep it hot. 

Some hot girls liked to ride the scooter too.

North Korea in eight days

North Korea

North Korea has been on my bucket list for a long time, just like South Africa under Apartheid was so many years earlier. 

I had already tried to sign up for North Korea a year ago, but the trip was opened for registration at 07:00 hours in Sweden and was sold out before I even woke up, we are six hours behind Europe. This time, I complained to the organizers and they, gracefully, changed the log-in time to 13:00 in Sweden, 07:00 for me. It made me into an early entrant on the list this time.

I went to Sweden to join my all-Swedish military interest group. We had to travel on Swedish passports, first to Beijing and then on to North Korea. It had taken the North Korean embassy over two months to put the visa stamp in.

First stop, Beijing, at least what we saw of it, looks and feels just like any other large western city. The traffic is horrendous and woe the pedestrian who wants to cross the street, with or against the traffic light. I narrowly avoided being run down by a driver who clearly had decided that to turn right at 50 km/h against a red light was perfectly all right. I now know that modern Chinese made cars have ABS brakes too, he left a number of short black rubber marks as he braked. The other people, walking with me, just shook their heads and walked on. Was I the only one that feared for my life then and there?

Naturally, we took in the major sights of the city. Our trip was, officially, a military-interest group. Almost all had some military experience and a few were still employed in the Swedish armed forces.

The military museum in Beijing showed a lot about China’s history of multiple invasions by Japan. The Korean war was, of course, amply visualized. It was not clear who had “won”, but a lot of talk of the cruel American soldiers that had been so mercilessly beaten by the brave and victorious Chinese troupes under General Peng Dehuai. 

There was no mention of any General Kim of North Korea at all.

We continued our trip in good style on China Airways even though I, and many others, secretly wished that we could have flown in on the world’s worst airline, Koryo Air.

The brand new international airport in Pyongyang is enormous. It was also empty, not only of planes - there were only two international flights to and from China that day - but also of people.

An Air Koryo customer service counter.

The trip had a military history perspective, which really only meant that we visited a number of lavish military museums. We spent eight days travelling by a comfortable Chinese-made, air-conditioned bus on some terribly uneven roads (our bus never went faster than 70 km/h) from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the south to some 300 kilometres north, passing a multitude of anti-tank obstacles hidden in the highway arches and columns along the way. 

These had explosives at the bottom, set such that the columns 

would fall over the highway. An effective anti-tank barrier.

We were stopped every few kilometres for inspection by military guards carrying big guns. Why?

"To catch spies," we were told.

One of the stops didn't only catch spies, but our bus driver. He was taken by the elbows and led far away behind some bushes where we couldn't see. He was gone for a long time. When he came back he had a piece of paper in his hand.

The roadbed was so terrible that only the left lane was driveable.

He had been fined for driving the bus in the UNMARKED left lane on the three-lane highway. That one lane must always be left open for Kim Jong-un and his traffic. They need to go fast and there must be no obstacles.

No cars, but many bicycles and oxcarts

The country has been in a perpetual state of war since 1950.

I had prepared myself well and read many books and articles beforehand just to get the hang of ”the thinking”.

Somewhat to the consternation of my fellow travellers, I often stepped outside of our group, took many photographs, and talked to all and sundry during my time in the country.

Unbeknownst to our primary guide, I actually got ”under the skin” of one of our other guides. He was ”the security” to keep us from wandering off and, heaven forbid, take any photographs that were not approved. His second job, he hinted at, was also to make sure that our official guide didn't stray outside her agenda or even, herself, get too close to any of her charges, us.

We talked quite a bit. Some, next to each other in the bus and also, later, in a quiet corner of a bar. He told me much about his life and family over a bottle of Whisky. It’s notable that I saw him in other movies taken by earlier groups. He had a different name for every group. For us his name tag said Jerry but he had been Michael on his name tag a few months earlier. Go figure.

Our primary guide, Jo, a young lady at age 26, had a few things to say in private too. She told me much about her life and family. Since all had to spend so much time in the army, four years for women and six years for men, marriages were late. Typically, at age 26 for women and 30 for men. Many marriages, but not all, are arranged by the parents. Once married, the newly-wed must live with their parents for a few years, until the state assigns them their own place to live.

Jo was lamenting the fact that, as a guide, she leaves home in April, travels all summer and doesn’t return home until the fall. She didn’t know if she’d meet a man the coming winter or not. Such a thing as sex was unheard of before marriage. Every bride had to be a virgin.

Jerry had two teenage children, a girl at 14 and a boy at 16. The boy was interested in games and spent a lot of time on the computer, at home. To make it possible, Jerry had bought a solar power system to allow a couple of extra hours on the computer after the lights went out at about 21:00.

A citizen's life, even for the privileged elite who lives on the 12th floor in a high-rise in Pyongyang, is hard. There would be power in the morning from 06:00 to 08:00 so if you wanted to go out, that was the time to use the elevators. Then they would have power around noon, again for elevator access and from about 17:00 to 21:00, time to get home from work, eat dinner and watch a bit of television. They had no refrigerator as there were too few hours of electricity to keep it cold.

Often without electricity or working elevators

The lack of so much is obvious to many. North Korea is a very poor place.

A very common view away from Pyongyang

As pampered tourists, we could only observe. The lack of electricity, heat, farm implements, transportation infrastructure, road, sewage and water system maintenance was appalling.

A typical toilet. 

1. When no water runs, scoop your flush from the bucket
2. When water runs, use red hose to fill the bucket.

These people were all doing their laundry by the side of the river, confirmed by our guide who also said, in the same sentence. "No Picture, forbidden."

The glories to the leaders were everywhere. There may be 30,000 statues of the two elder Kims around the country, we could certainly count many.

This one is in a subway station

Note the urns with flowers in the foreground. They had just been placed by a military group. The urns were soon moved back and made ready for the next group.

We visited the mausoleums of both of the elder Kim's. 

Here is Kim Jong-il on eternal display. We had to line up on three sides and bow before exiting this room.

The TV sets were everywhere, and the newscaster was very enthusiastic.

Entertainment TV program with Kim Jong-un

A few minutes later, the cannon were booming. 

There is little free time for North Koreans. They live as members of a collective. Everyone, from students to older people, must give an hour a day to "the state." This involves a lot of cleaning of public places and statues. 

One hour in the morning. Cutting the grass with SCISSORS...! 

Sunday is usually taken up by community studies or volunteer work. 

It was harvest time, September, when we visited. These huts 

were ubiquitous and used by many farmworkers for overnight stays.

Our guides told us that they, as students, had gone into the fields every spring and fall, living in tents, to work on state-run farms. Most farmers today use oxen rather than tractors. The few farm vehicles we did see were very old.

There are no large stores or shopping centres, as far as we could see, but plenty of specialized stores. The government distributes food and clothing. The stores we did visit were selling goods priced beyond the reach of local people. A lot of what we saw on the shelves was very dusty, probably just put there to impress us.

Most of North Korea's wonders were built in the last 30 years. The 3.5 million-strong city of Pyongyang is impressive, full of tall, clean-looking buildings, wide boulevards and an unbelievable number of impressive government edifices and sports palaces, including the largest arena in the world, the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, which seats up to 150,000 people.

Private cars are forbidden. The cars you see are mostly owned by government representatives. Most people use trolleybuses, streetcars or bicycles to get around. Public transit vehicles don't turn on their lights after dark - not even headlights - to save on power.

There is an almost funny story about how the country was going to open up to the world in 1974, when it held a large industrial exhibition. Deals were struck, including one with Volvo of Sweden to supply 1,000 cars. They did, but North Korea never got around to paying for them. You can still see them here and there, as here stopped with an open hood.

35-year old Volvo, broken down by the highway

Pyongyang has an extensive subway system, built 100 metres below ground to guard against "atomic bombs," we were told. 

From what we could gather, no tourist has ever seen more than three stations. Do they exist?

They must, the trains were very full.

Our tour of the city included a tribute to deceased supreme leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il (current leader Kim Jong-un's grandfather and father). Their 30-metre-tall copper statues stand side by side on a tall pedestal. Some of us were given flowers to lay at their feet. Then we stepped back, lined up and were told to bow. The flowers were collected for the next batch of visitors.

We bowed often during our stay, at paintings, at indoor statues and at the enormous mausoleums where the two lie in state. They are gods. The North Korean calendar starts in 1912, when Kim Il-sung was born. Little children go to bed asking Kim Il-sung for a good night's sleep and the next morning thank him for the breakfast he has provided.

The country runs on the "juche" philosophy, which focuses primarily on patriotism and self-reliance. A 125-metre obelisk honours these principles, insisting that nothing is beyond man's abilities.

But the country has not seen the glorious results of that vision. As recently as 20 years ago, as many as a million North Koreans died from lack of food.

The country actually lives by another rule: "military first." North Korea has the fourth-largest active army in the world after China, the United States and India. Military trucks are a common sight but one that we were forbidden to photograph: "No photo." Along with "No go" and "Forbidden," these were the English words we heard most often on our visit.

A common sight (forbidden to photograph)
Soldiers in uniform guarding geese, sheep, and pigs

Oh, the stories we were told. The best was that Kim Jong-il was born on Mount Paektu in February 1942, when there was a double rainbow, a star over the mountain and the cranes flew in circles. In reality, he was born in Siberia when his father was there commanding a Russian company, as was pointed out by one of my fellow travellers. Strange, those words were totally ignored by our guides who, usually, were quite quick to correct our misunderstandings of world history.

Also, Kim Jong-il is a great maker of "internationally acclaimed" films. We saw glimpses of many on TV during our stay. There was a lot of black-and-white movies about war showing men and women singing in front of a background of shooting cannons, flying warplanes or running soldiers. The government sends out inspectors to make sure you're not picking up any South Korean or Chinese channels.

But the weirdest moment of all came when we had to empty our pockets and were given a once-over with a vacuum cleaner before entering a huge complex devoted to 243,000 gifts received from adoring world leaders. 

I wonder which world leader donated the doctorate degree to Kim il-Jong from Kensington University, California, in 1973? That is a diploma mill, the more you pay, the bigger is the diploma print-out.

This is similar to what I saw in this museum

"No pictures allowed", of course.

This school was cited in the 1995 government sting operation on diploma mills and forced to close in both California and Hawaii so its credibility is not widely established in terms of using a degree from here for employment. Degrees from here have been banned for use in several states of the USA and in many countries around the world.

It took five minutes to enter the country ("Any movies in your iPad?" "No.") and two hours of scrutinizing our luggage and inspecting all cameras and smartphones before we could leave. "Illegal, erase."

The bulk of my photos were on picture cards hidden in my socks on departure.

Guards, guards and more guards along the railroad track.
All with guns.

We left North Korea on a train that never went faster than 40 km/h according to the GPS that one of my colleagues had hidden. 

The roadbed was terrible with long stretches where up to 40 % of the spikes were missing.

Our train had seats for all, but not so on any of the other trains

we saw. Note the persons going between the tracks, UNDER the train.

The Chinese train to Beijing, the next day, sometimes traveled at 275 km/h.

Chinese high-speed train

I came home with lots of thoughts swirling in my head. That little insight into a world that is completely different than what any of us know, North Korea, was sobering.

They live in a communistic, totally dictatorial, state with zero, absolutely no ability to control your own life. All are told what to do, and even worse, taught what to think. I don’t say that because of what we saw, but based on the several books that I read before, and even more books that I read after my return.

It is a society without monetary rewards, there is nothing to buy outside of the farmers’ markets. There are some flea markets selling Chinese products, but most of them are smuggled into the country.

So much was put up for show, and displayed for us. What was for real? We all tried to look behind the Potemkin facades but couldn’t agree on what we had seen. Our guides kept us busy every minute of the day, from breakfast to the last night-cap.

As so many who have visited North Korea, have said, there was no time to walk or see anything on your own. Or, more to the truth, we were not allowed to step away from our guides, not even for a few seconds. I stepped into a store while we were walking as a group. One of the guides saw me come out again but got distracted by one of the group taking a picture of a military truck. He jumped at that man, made him open the camera and erase the offending picture. 

When that was done, I was far away.

I took a great number of photographs from inside my semi-closed hand, not in an obvious manner. With a wide-angle lens, you can cut out what you care to see when at home. My micro photo memory cards were only 11 x 15 mm, easy to hide anywhere in my luggage. 

I am glad to say that my camera and my memory cards evaded inspection on our way out of the country. There were two inspectors for each of our six-person cabins. They spent at least an hour, or more, systematically going through, first the cellphones, and then our regular cameras, then asking for any extra photo-cards, erasing all “forbidden” pictures. They ran out of time before they came to me, I sat closest to the window, farthest away from the door.

I had some hope of being able to keep in touch with my so open guide. He had expressed a great interest in how to leave North Korea, which route to take, and what happens to a North Korean, once in South Korea. I told him about the routes, the difficulty of getting to a North Korean consulate, and how they are interrogated before they receive a USD 20,000 bonus for coming. He was keenly interested. Perhaps he registered what I said to tell the border guards, but I don’t think so, there are dozens of books, both in Korean and English, describing how North Koreans have escaped their country-sized prison.

As a final gesture, we had stepped aside, I handed him my business card. He took it, read it carefully, put in his pocket and said, very slowly and with great deliberation, in a sorrowful tone.

“What good is this, the law forbids me to send or receive a letter for as long as I live."

Just imagine…

See more photographs here.

https://goo.gl/photos/mvGzj7oXTYZcNdiU9