A tourist's glimpse of Pyongyang: 'Everything was spotless'
"When the plane landed, nobody moved. Everyone was quiet. It was the first sign to me that we were really in North Korea."
Auke Boersma is a Dutch advertising executive who recently travelled to North Korea's capital of Pyongyang as a tourist. Like many who sign up for the annual Pyongyang marathon, it's a chance to see the much-discussed, mostly secretive nation that occupies headlines but rarely offers the outside world a peek inside.
Boersma, who works for Light Reaction in Singapore, told Mashable he was keen to go because he wanted to see how accurately the hermit kingdom is portrayed in outside media.
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"I wanted to experience that tension, the constant fear of being watched and monitored," he said.
He travelled to Pyongyang with Koryo Tours, a China-based travel agency that has specialised in organising tours to North Korea since 1992. The three-day trip cost a little over 1200 Euro ($1,354) in total.
He knew he was being shown a part of the country that had more spit and polish for foreigners, but even so it was eerily spotless, he said.
"It felt like 'The Jetsons'."
"The road from the airport to downtown was perfect. Every tree was the same distance from the next one. And in town, there were always people cleaning.
"If there's a patch of brown grass, they'll take it out and put in a [green] piece. It was like being on a film set," he said.
The carefully sculpted capital city felt like it was out of an old movie depicting the future, he said. "It felt like 'The Jetsons,' where everyone wears the same outfit, and everything is shiny. The men wore suits, and the girls wore skirts -- they all had a similar bob haircut."
Race Day
This year, the race was moved at the last minute to the Rungrado May Day Stadium -- the largest stadium in the world, with a capacity for 150,000 spectators.
Boersma said it was half-filled that day, and most men attending were dressed up, wearing the "Mao" suits that Kim Jong-un and his father before him are commonly photographed in.
The runners started and ended in the stadium, where a football match was held on the pitch to entertain the crowd while the marathon was going on. Along the way, locals stood by the race track clapping and offering high fives.
Running outside, he noticed the stark lack of billboards along the roads. "Obviously, the enterprises are state-owned so you don't need advertising, but it's jarring when you come from countries where you have advertisements everywhere.
"It was oddly peaceful not to see ads on a building," he said.
Most of the propaganda he noticed was anti-Western, and much of it celebrated moments of military victories over foes such as the U.S.
Overall, it was a positive experience, he said, adding: "It does feel like some of the things you read about North Korea are exaggerated."
Although Boersma reports having a good time in the country, he acknowledged that he was careful not to run afoul of the rules, in light of recent examples of harsh punishment against foreigners.
In March, the administration sentenced U.S. college student Otto Warmbier to 15 years of hard labour after he was caught trying to steal a banner from the hotel at which he was staying.
"You know you're in a foreign country, you should respect the rules," Boersma said, regarding Warmbier's case.
"Honestly, it was an experience of a lifetime."
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Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
