Around the World in 80 Trains

by Monisha Rajesh

  On the walk back to the coach I noticed how pristine the surrounding park was. There was not one fallen leaf on the grass, and rows of red flowers bloomed in perfect alignment. Miss Kim came over and linked her arm through mine.

  ‘What were the ladies doing here earlier?’ I asked.

  ‘All the ladies are working voluntarily out of respect.’

  I looked down at the circular red pin on Miss Kim’s lapel, which featured the avuncular face of Kim Il Sung. Lee wore a pin that featured both Kims, as did Pak and Song. I was curious as to why none of the pins showed the current ruler, Kim Jong Un, but decided it was too soon to interrogate the guides. Unsure whether she was being friendly or stopping me from dawdling, I felt Miss Kim steering us back to the coach and took the chance to ask if I could get a badge for myself. She looked momentarily offended, then resumed her default setting of being unimpressed.

  ‘This is not for foreigners. When we join the Youth League we are gifted the badge.’

  ‘Do you ever take it off?’

  ‘No. It is our dear father, I am so proud to wear it. He is a great, great man who has done so much for us.’

  I found it odd how Miss Kim kept referring to him in the present tense, but didn’t give it much more thought and flopped down in my seat, ready for dinner and a hot shower before bed. Miss Kim sat in front of us and shoved in her earphones for the journey; they were playing the theme song from the film Titanic.

  The Yanggakdo Hotel was a tower block of gloom located on its own island, offering a panoramic view of Pyongyang from the windows, which, rather worryingly, could be fully opened, even on the fortieth floor. Neon-lit and charmless – and packed with foreign tour groups – the Yanggakdo housed a pool hall, a bowling alley and karaoke facilities in the basement. But after a dinner of egg fried rice, pork and pickled cucumber, we were too tired to even consider a verse of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ and took ourselves off, leaving the rest of the group in the bar. In the lift, Jem pointed at the panel where the numbers jumped from ‘4’ to ‘6’. The fifth floor was indeed missing. The Yanggakdo’s mysterious fifth floor was akin to the twilight zone. It definitely existed, but it was strictly out of bounds. Unsurprisingly, an American blogger had once gained access through a staff staircase and posted up photos of an empty floor covered in the standard propaganda posters, and an office with what he claimed was Soviet recording equipment, which I later discovered recorded little more than footage from four video cameras in the lobby and one in the car park. We had read all about this and now that we were here and unsupervised in the lift, we were just as uninterested. Even if our room was tapped no one would hear anything more incriminating than Jem snoring and my moaning about being cold and tired, and I had no intention of sniffing around where I was not wanted.

  Our room smelt like my grandmother’s cupboards. Layered with dust, but warm and carpeted, it contained two single beds separated by a heavy radio unit, so there was no way for us to push them together and whisper across our pillows. There was a TV airing Al Jazeera and the BBC politics programme Dateline, in addition to the state news channel, which featured a terrifying middle-aged woman wearing a chima jogori – a traditional skirt and top. She never moved from behind her desk and boomed out details of Kim Jong Un’s movements like an opera singer. There was no sound accompanying the footage of him at department stores or being chased in his bus by weeping subjects. It was fascinating stuff, yet I couldn’t quite imagine twenty-four-hour footage devoted to the Queen riding horses, cutting ribbons or wandering around Chelsea Flower Show.

  Having ferreted away the toothbrushes, combs and soaps from our bathroom as souvenirs – or to sell on eBay – Jem ran the hot tap and examined the earpiece of the phone for electronic bugs. He unhooked the hairdryer, which let out little more than a wheeze. Contrary to all the doom-mongering, everything else was in working order. Before drawing the curtains, we slid open the windows and huddled together as a slap of icy air took us by surprise. From the twentieth floor, we looked out across the blackness of the Taedong river. It didn’t look right. Two bridges were lit up in green and blue neon, the curves reflecting in the water, and the red flame of the Juche Tower was aglow, but the rest of the city lurked under shadows. Freckles of light revealed the odd high rise, but in the absence of street lights, traffic and advertising, it appeared that the city had been turned off. Shivering, we drew the curtains and called it a night.

  As the clock struck six o’clock, a tuneless wail crackled from the speakers of Pyongyang railway station. Played every hour on the hour, the eeriness continued for more than five minutes as I gazed up at the two Kims beaming beneath the clock. From behind the station, there came the hint of the first sunny day as dawn broke across the sky and my heart leapt. I was dying to get back on the trains and sunshine was just what was required for hanging out of train windows en route to Hyangsan. Around four hours’ northeast of Pyongyang, this was the closest station to reach Mount Myohyang, and few tourists had ever taken this route by train. Counting heads, Sarah noted that Pyotr had gone missing again and he was soon spotted shuffling across the street with his camera. Pak was dispatched to collect him while the rest of us gathered our things and went in to find our train.

  The station was as empty as a disused airport hangar. It echoed with the squeak of our shoes, for there was not a single other person present. Expecting the slamming of doors and thud of engines, the frenzy of hawkers and whistling announcements, I felt cheated. There were no more than three or maybe four tracks, yet the first platform covered an expanse the size of a football pitch and just one train stood at the furthest end. Its diesel engine was Korean, but the carriages were taken from a 1970s vintage Swiss train chartered just for us. We were not allowed to travel on local trains with citizens, so this was our home for the next nine days. I took great pleasure in watching the rest of the group run around bagsying seats, inspecting the loos and fondling the blankets in the sleeper car. It felt like Christmas morning and it only convinced me further that trains would always have a charm that could soften even the grumpiest traveller: a spot of sun warming your cheek while you read; the clackety-clack of wheels as you slept; or the thrill of a smile and a wave from passers-by. The guides had commandeered the first compartment and had already taken to teasing and taunting Miss Kim, who had changed into a pair of bedroom slippers and a fur gilet. I slipped into their compartment and sat down opposite her, armed with a notebook and a weak smile, in the hope that a little female solidarity would help her to open up a bit. After chain-smoking a number of Marlboro Golds, Lee and Pak changed into towelling slippers and settled down to rifle through Sarah’s handbag. Mr Song, the antithesis of what his name suggested, remained mute in the corner.

  The Swiss carriages began to glide with such stealth that I didn’t notice we were on the move until sunshine flared at the window, and I moved into the corridor for a better view of the city. Free from the fumes of factories and traffic pollution, the sky burned an unusual blue that set the city alight. Gone was the greyness and desolation. Pyongyang’s tower blocks were now the embodiment of twee perfection, like Disneyland towers in bubblegum pink and peppermint green. Florets of green bundled around the treetops and a lace of purple flowers lay by the track. Victor joined me at the window just as an ominous but familiar sight loomed into view. Driving up from the ground, the rocket-shaped Ryugyong Hotel was almost four times the height of any other structure in the city and five times as wide. Dubbed the ‘Hotel of Doom’, construction of the 105-storey building had begun in 1987 but had come to a halt during the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had devastated North Korea’s economy. The glass exterior had since been completed but it was anybody’s guess as to whether or not it would ever be opened for service. It looked like it might take off at any moment.

  ‘Monstrosity,’   Victor said, as we rolled past the Ryugyong and began to pick up pace. ‘But I tell you, it’s fascinating how fast this country is changing.’

  ‘This isn’t y
our first time?’

  ‘Fourth,’ Victor replied, staring straight ahead as the wind began to tease the slicked-back strands of his hair. Victor was from Vancouver, in his late sixties and looked like a dark-haired version of Robert Redford. Not overburdened by modesty, he had let it be known that he had made a fortune in business and was now indulging his love of travel.

  ‘Fourth? What’s the attraction?’

  He looked me dead in the eye. ‘The same reasons you’re here. Curiosity. Intrigue. Wanting to witness history as it unfolds. And of course, this …’ Victor waved an arm through the window. ‘You can’t beat train travel. You know there’s a real beauty to it. You can fly, you can drive, but nothing can show you the bowels of a city like standing at a train window. Do you like train travel?’

  ‘I do. That’s why I chose this particular trip.’

  ‘That’s unusual, you know.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘A girl, enjoying this kind of travel. I think it’s highly commendable that you’re doing this.’

  My nostrils flared, but I stayed quiet. In fairness to Victor, the group more or less comprised single white men on an adventure.

  ‘I was here a couple of years ago and when I read about this trip I couldn’t resist the chance to get out of Pyongyang and see the rest of the country,’   Victor said. He glanced into the guides’ compartment. ‘They hide a lot, as you’ve probably realised.’

  The truth was that I hadn’t realised – or rather, that I couldn’t. I knew that the surface belied an ugly reality, but there was no way of confirming the degree to which it was true. People were polite – albeit reserved – and the infrastructure appeared in better shape than a lot of cities we’d travelled through. Moreover, I had been reluctant to quiz the guides for the first few days for fear of putting them on their guard or making them feel awkward. Both Pak and Lee had spent their adolescent years living abroad and it beggared belief that they would come back to live in North Korea and continue to peddle a myth when they must have been fully aware of the truth behind their leaders and their country’s standing in the world. I also wondered why their families had bothered coming back, but it transpired that when diplomatic families are posted to other countries, one child is often left with extended family to guarantee their return.

  Victor rummaged around in his bag, pulled out a twelve-pack of Crispy Crunch bars and broke one in half to share. ‘I packed all my food for the ten days. Last time I was here the food was awful, barely edible, so I brought my own stuff – tins of tuna … lots of nuts. But I can’t tell you how different it all is. I mean the food is great now. You wouldn’t have touched the stuff back then and everybody got sick. This is why I keep coming back. I like to see the progress. It’s going to be so different in ten, maybe fifteen, years. I think we won’t recognise it. I’m so hopeful for the people.’

  ‘You don’t feel guilty about coming?’

  ‘No, why should I? The US has nuclear weapons, so do you guys. America has committed some of the worst human rights abuses on this earth and continues to do so every day. The Saudis flog their citizens and treat their women like dirt, but no one issues sanctions against them. What do they do? – the UK and the US give them aircraft and munitions to murder civilians in Yemen.’

  Sarah came padding through in her slippers. ‘Everyone okay?’

  ‘Fine thanks. Loving the views,’ I said.

  ‘I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it? So nice being out of the city.’

  I nodded towards the compartment where Pak and Lee were fidgeting with Sarah’s iPad amid gales of laughter as Miss Kim glared out of the window.

  ‘They were going through your bag earlier,’ I said.

  Sarah started laughing. ‘They don’t really get the concept of “mine” and “yours” or the idea of personal possessions.’

  ‘Socialists,’  Victor muttered.

  ‘The guides regularly go through my bag looking for snacks or my iPad, which I don’t mind. In fact, I find it quite funny. I remember on one trip coming back to the compartment to find Lee and Pak had got my make-up bag out and Pak was holding the compact mirror and applying BB cream.’

  She looked over at them with an expression of genuine fondness. ‘Although the one thing that does annoy me is when they call people fat, especially when they do now understand that Westerners find it rude. I once had a massive fallout with Lee when he told me how fat I’d got since our last trip, but the best way to get back at them is to tell them they have a lovely dark tan and then they get super offended.’

  As was the case in all Asian countries, darker skin implied a low-class life of labouring in the sun, whereas a complexion the colour of milk was more indicative of higher social standing – which explained Miss Kim’s penchant for whitening up her selfies, even though she was evidently from an ‘elite’ family.

  Victor went back to his compartment while Sarah checked up on the rest of the group, granting me a few moments of peace. The train had left the city and entered the countryside where we were now surrounded by fields of maize, gathered and bound like scrolls of burnt gold. A spritz of cloud hovered in the blue and my bare arms began to warm as I absorbed the stillness. It had been a frenetic few days and my mind was brimming. The North Korea of tanks, missiles and the Kims was already a world away: oxen ploughed the fields; clusters of cottages had roofs of red chillies drying in the sun; and beautiful children squatted in the yard sifting piles of corn. Their parents paused their work and watched stony-faced as we swept by. Buffalos huffed and bowed, drawing wooden carts piled with people, and cyclists stopped to inspect the train as we slowed into a tiny station. Pak appeared at once at the door. ‘Do not take any photographs at the stations. It is forbidden,’ he warned, going to each compartment in turn.

  Disappointed I pocketed my phone and leant out of the window as a wiry man with a stick attempted to guide a frenzy of ducks flapping and honking their way across the tracks.

  ‘NO PICTURES!’ came a shout from on the platform. While we weren’t allowed to disembark, Pak had hopped off to have a cigarette and was yelling at Pyotr who was leaning out of the window and photographing a group of soldiers waiting with their bags. Despite the widespread belief that North Korea’s military comprises mindless warriors waiting for orders to launch the next warhead, soldiers are often no more than free labourers engaged in any number of construction projects, and are commonly referred to as ‘soldier-builders’ by the state media. Lee had also gone out for a cigarette and was chatting to Pak when I saw then how much taller and broader they were compared with not just the soldiers, but every other person we had seen. Pak was well over six-foot and Lee wasn’t far off, while everyone else averaged around 5 foot 5. Having lived abroad in their teens, they had obviously escaped the effects of the 1990s famine, which were now only clear when witnessing them all side by side.

  Tommy banged on the door and waved, yanking it open before I could protest. ‘Bloody Russians,’ he grinned, taking off his cagoule. Nick, Geoff and Tommy’s wife Anna wandered in and I gave up on peace and quiet for the present. As we began to move, Geoff joined me at the window. A former journalist doing a PhD on North Korean studies in Seoul, Geoff occasionally came over to the North to keep up to date with affairs. He had a huge bottle of soju – rice liquor – in one hand that he readily shared around as he wasn’t allowed to take it back to the South. Putting on a pair of plastic sunglasses, he smiled up at the sun, which beamed in return. The train began to roll past a village and I watched the women carrying bundles of crops and children on their backs. They exuded health and strength, as did their offspring. Their clothes, while drab, were clean and in good condition. There was little to suggest poverty and I remarked as such to Geoff. He pushed his sunglasses onto his head before glancing back at the others and saying in a low voice: ‘That’s probably true, but like with everything in this country, there’s always more to the story. North Korean towns and villages operate on a tiered system. If you’re from a poli
tically favoured family,’ he continued, ‘you would get the privilege of living in Pyongyang or somewhere pretty good, whereas lower-tiered people have to live elsewhere. Privileged people get access to better railways, infrastructure, education and whatever else. This is how the Workers’ Party dispenses patronage. Elite compounds, for example, have their own private railroads for high-ranking cadres.’ His voice sank to a whisper. ‘We also know from defectors that smaller railway lines have fallen into disrepair. We aren’t seeing any of this on our route, so we can reasonably assume that we’ve been granted access to approved areas that have probably had the economic advantages of being on the railway artery.’

  At that moment, Sarah poked her head into the compartment and announced that we were about to arrive in Hyangsan.

  A short drive from Hyangsan brought us to Mount Myohyang, a national park of sorts that stretched around the river Chongchon. Waterfalls slid like silk down the granite cliffs, before being bundled along by the river as it rushed over fallen trees and boulders. A blanket of conifers covered the hillsides and the slopes of green looked so Alpine that I half expected a tearaway nun to come twirling around in song. Having wound down into a valley, we eventually pulled up outside a pair of grey buildings. This was the International Friendship Exhibition, which housed all the gifts that foreign dignitaries had ever presented to the Kims. It looked like a Bond lair. The entrance was concealed by a four-ton copper door, which had a protruding sphere at the centre. On closer inspection, it appeared to be a model of the earth. A high-pitched creak suggested wheels were in motion and the earth split into two as the doors slid back to reveal a woman wearing a black velvet chima jogori embroidered with silver stars.

  After handing in our coats, cameras and phones, we followed the guide as she glided through the windowless building, her hemline sweeping the floor. In the main hall was a treasure trove of rhino horns, swords, vases, shields and spears gifted to the Kims, which included a gold sword from Colonel Gaddafi, a rugby ball from Wigan Warriors and an NBA basketball signed by Michael Jordan that Madeleine Albright had presented Kim Jong Il when she visited in 2000. I was relieved that the cabinet of UK gifts looked like the world’s worst charity shop and featured two chipped glass plates and one faded vase. Miss Kim walked alongside us, pointing out the plethora of international newspaper front pages that featured the Kims, the best of which was from the New York Times: ‘Kim Jong Il Emerges as the Lodestar for Sailing the 21st Century’. ‘All over the world the dear leader was known for his greatness,’ she said as I winced with embarrassment. From the 1960s until as late as the 1990s North Korea regularly placed adverts in leading Western newspapers that the state media then reported as editorials or news. Miss Kim’s parents had grown up abroad, so it seemed unlikely that she had no awareness of the Kims’ regime. Did she believe this illusion? Or was she simply playing the role that was expected of her? Elite families were the first to benefit from the regime’s patronage – the same the world over – so perhaps it was in her best interest to toe the line and reap the rewards. Overcome by a rush of frustration I was relieved when the tour ended and we were free to have a cup of tea, buy some souvenir stamps and breathe in the greenery of the surroundings, which held far more allure than anything we had been shown.