Dates preface 26-08-2005 27-08-2005 28-08-2005 29-08-2005 30-08-2005 31-08-2005 01-09-2005 02-09-2005 03-09-2005 back home 4 Dutchies Traveling to the DPRK From august 27th till september 3rd Sasja and me were vacationing in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. I had wanted to travel on the Trans Siberia Express for a long time, and when we looked on the map we saw how close North Korea was to the end of that route. We were instantly fascinated by the idea of going there. Why? Because it's one of the only communist/socialist countries left these days, and we'd like to see this 'part of world history' with our own eyes. It turned out that Tiara Tours, the Dutch Travel Agency with whom we booked our Trans Siberian train trip, also offered an extention to North Korea. So we booked it. Tiara Tours used the Beijing based travel agent Koryo Tours for the trip to North Korea. Koryo Tours specialize in trips to the DPRK, so they are very knowledgable on this subject and provided us with some very useful information before we took off. We traveled by train from Moscow to Beijing together with our friend Eric. As an American, he couldn't join us to go to North Korea, which he very much regretted. I wrote my travel log in Dutch, my mother tongue, but I translated the part about North Korea to English for Eric and other people to read. I would recommend every one who is curious about North Korea to go there, because it's quite an experience. But remember to be open minded and try to see things in the local context. And read the travel tips on the Koryo Tours website first. Finally a big disclaimer: English is not my mother tongue and you're bound to find many errors in the text of this travel log. It's really a lot of text. It took me a long time to write it in Dutch and it took me a long time to translate it to English (mostly late at night when I was tired). I hope you understand I haven't spent much time on trying to turn this text into correct English. Although some people have expressed their doubts about it, I do have a life besides writing about my holidays. Oh, and there's still one more thing: this is my personal story. I may have made mistakes, used incorrect dates, names or misunderstood and/or misinterpreted information that was given, stories that were told or things that have happened. Too bad. I'm not writing a travel guide, and I'm not double checking every fact. Although some people have expressed their doubts about it, I do have a life besides writing about my holidays. Or did I say that already? Anyway, have fun reading! Hanneke feedback can be sent to hanneke-at-zmrzlina-dot-nl