Beijing, October 9, 2008, Thursday
Trip Start
Sep 26, 2008
1
15
31
Trip End
Oct 18, 2008
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Beijing,
China
Sunday, April 19, 2009
I saw Pim and we just made sure that everything was going as planned. My stuff was already more or less packed, so I only wanted to settle the hotel bill. In fact, it was them who owed me a hundred yuan deposit for the key I had given them on my arrival. Pim seemed to have one or two unfinished things left to do in his room so he shortly returned there. And I got to the reception desk.
And there was this girl who Peter the Englishman had said was in love with him some days before. We settled the things, I gave her the key, she returned the money to me and when I thought that was all, she said:
"Excuse me, sir, are you a musician?"
"Yes, I am."
She nodded:
"You look like one."
Well, I knew I did. After that the conversation inevitably veered off to what instrument I was playing, then what kind of music and so on. However, much as she was a pleasant company, I had no time for it any more.
Beijing 1
So I tried to cut it short and be polite at the same time. I wrote down my band's web address for her and explained to her how she should click the UK/US flag for English version of the site in case she is really interested in what I played. She nodded, thanked me and I had to go fetch my things.Because both PingPing and Pim were on time.
I asked PingPing if she would mind if I left my mobile phone with her during my stay in North Korea. She didn't, of course. And I asked her if she would mind taking Pim along with us to Koryo Tours. Again, she didn't. So soon we were off.
It turned out we had overestimated the Bĕijîng traffic and arrived earlier than we had thought. So after I had left my luggage in the Koryo Tours, PingPing and I had some time for a short walk and a visit to nearby CD and DVD shop. She bought herself some films and then it was time for me to go. I promised her I would call as soon as I was back in Bĕijîng and thereby the second part of my trip effectively started.
There were fourteen of us making our group. Twelve had arrived in Koryo Tours and two were meeting us at the airport. We were all led to a van waiting outside and before we got started, Simon showed us our North Korean visa. Interestingly enough, North Korean authorities refused to stamp visas into passports. Instead they rather issued a separate piece of paper with a collective visa, as it were, with photos and basic information of all passengers in the group all in one place. So the only way to have it as a keepsake was to take a photo of it.
Beijing 2
Almost everyone did.And then we finally started.
The procedure at the airport was pretty much straightforward, much simpler than one would expect, considering the fact that we were travelling to North Korea. Which in other words meant that our expectations were pretty much a consequence of our prejudices. In fact, the only hitch we ever had, happened to me. During the check-in at the Air Koryo desk, Simon was given boarding cards for each passenger separately. And only when he handed the card to the passenger whose name was called out, did he receive the next card. This roll-call went smoothly until it became clear to me that he would never call out my name.
"Simon," I called after him. "I've not received my boarding card yet."
"You didn't?"
He was surprised. Everyone else proceeded to the passport control unaware of the snag I had run across. Simon and I stayed behind and it soon turned out that the problem was with the North Korean authorities. I didn't quite get the sense of what was behind all this, but Simon explained that somebody somewhere had for some reason copied the names from the passenger list Koryo Tours had provided them to another list. And in the age of PCs, e-mails and copy-paste two-click procedure, North Koreans still stubbornly clung to old-fashioned manual copying. So somewhere along the way a bureaucrat in some office had paired up the name of Tobias, one of our two German travellers, with my family name. Of course, Tobias had already received his boarding card with his full and proper name. Once the mess was cleared, along with some friendly help from the Air Koryo airport office boss, who obviously knew Simon, I was finally given permission to join the passport control myself.
"Sorry," Simon said.
"No problem," I tried to be philosophical about it. "It had to happen to someone. So why not me?"
Simon must have liked my taking the whole thing in stride. He nodded:
"It adds a sense of adventure to the whole thing a bit, I guess."
And after that, everything went smoothly.
Having cleared the passport control, we had an hour or so to kill until the boarding time and take-off. We were all still strangers to each other so people dispersed according who knew whom. Which basically meant that those who joined the trip as pairs stayed together, and the rest of us, the loners, killed the time on their own. Some people went into the duty free shop, following Simon's suggestion to buy some presents for the people we were going to meet in North Korea. I didn't. I guess I was too tired to be bothered with something I perceived as less than essential. Now that I was all by myself for an hour or so, with nothing but a stack of read to kill my time with, I suddenly felt as sleepy as if I had not slept for days. It was then that I realised how exhausted I was and how taxing a pace I had imposed on myself over the past two weeks in Bĕijîng.
Was North Korea going to be any easier?
