The surreal experience of peering into North Korea

I’ve seen so damn much on our budget slow travel world tour since 2015, including some pretty far-out stuff like hiking active volcanoes and camping in deserts, watching Komodo dragons fight and swimming next to whale fish. Experiences with different people have broadened my world view, including with my indigenous Ati tribe friends, with recovered alcoholics like myself and people with cancer whom I’ve befriended in various countries — myself a former breast cancer patient while traveling. All of us are just trying to live our best lives.

Of course, some people will never have a chance at a good life, like the people in North Korea. These are people I’m not allowed to meet or break bread with, people I’ll never see — up close. I did see a few North Koreans through binoculars at the Odusan Unification Observatory in South Korea. It was surreal to peer into such a closed country.

I saw a few soldiers on patrol, people hauling hay on their backs and others working tractors. I watched a North Korean on a motorcycle and another on a bicycle. I was too far to see the details – who they are and what exactly they were doing. I couldn’t see their faces.

I viewed the North Koreans with the old-school binoculars outside on a rooftop platform. Inside, I used a digital version that let me download pictures of what I saw. Right behind the digital binoculars is a cafe. I turn around and to a cozy place with $5 coffees and floor cushions for naps in an area called “The place of Space out.” One man slept. A middle-aged couple sipped their beverages over quiet conversation. Nine young people chattered and posed for selfies.

It was as if there was nothing weird at all about enjoying their lives while across the river people were starving – made slaves to a dictator’s authoritarian regime. Wild.

Back outside, I heard odd music and strange noises. A sort of fun house style music cut with jet engines and ghostly sounds. I went back inside and asked an observatory worker: “What are those sounds, and are they really coming from North Korea?” She grinned. “Yes, they play it to annoy us… This is nothing. You should hear it at 2:00 a.m. It drives us mad.” In retaliation, she said the South plays happy songs back to the North.

Such a childish volley at the world’s most militarized demilitarized zone. Perhaps even more childish are the balloons sometimes filled with excrement the North sends to the South in retaliation for the propaganda pamphlets sent from some unknown entity in the South (the South Korean government denies sending such brochures on how good life can be without an authoritarian ruler).

Ironically, balloons from the North landed in Seoul the day before we went sightseeing in the same area. (We didn’t see them.)

Coincidentally, nuclear North Korea tested and intercontinental missile and several ballistic missiles during our visit.

Horrifically, North Korean troops appeared in Russia to help fight against Ukraine during our month-long Seoul stay.

Sadly, the hibakusha in Japan — atomic bomb survivors — won the Nobel Peace Prize during our Korean visit.

Hopefully, that’s not prophetically telling.

Some 24,000 active duty troops are in South Korea, with 73 bases. The third largest in the world (Japan is first, Germany is second). And now America’s new leader of the ‘free’ world is about to step into power again.

The world has gone mad. Or, maybe it was always mad, and we are reaching a point of no return to sanity. If that’s the case, then travel now. Because Life, however long it may be for each of us, is Now.

Thanks for reading, “The surreal experience of peering into North Korea.”

Also see: How to get to the Odusan Observatory – the budget travel way.

Watch a surreal report on North Korean defectors as stars of a reality show in South Korea on YouTube.

About Ellen

Ellen and spouse Tedly started a budget slow travel lifestyle in 2015. She was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer while traveling in Europe in 2018 through an annual mammogram. She had a double mastectomy in Croatia, recovered from surgery, and kept traveling.

As a recovered alcoholic, Ellen seeks out spiritual growth opportunities in a variety of ways during her travel life, including service work, volunteering, and the occasional silent meditation retreat.