My list of unique eating places

A chance question on Facebook recently asking about my favourite restaurant got me thinking - do I have a favourite eating place? On reflection I realised I don't as there are too many to choose from. There are many restaurants I've enjoyed for different reasons, depending on whether I was looking for relaxation, luxury or a fantastic view. So here are some of my favourites:

• Most 'desert island' - during one of my trips to the Maldives in 2005 I stayed on board the Four Seasons Explorer. One evening we were taken to a deserted island where the crew dug seating into the sand. When we arrived back on the ship later the remaining crew members played us music on local instruments. A truly magical evening.

• Most 'spiritual' - when we lived in South Korea we spent a weekend in a Buddhist temple, and on another occasion we also participated in a day of temple food cooking. Korean temple cuisine is vegetarian and generally avoids garlic, onions, leeks, wild chives or shallots due to their pungency.

Eating temple food at Gilsangsa, Seoul

• Most 'axis of evil' - any of the meals I had while visiting North Korea!

one of the dinners I had in North Korea

one of my lunches in North Korea

• Most northerly - lunch in the Icelandic town of Akureyri which is 65°N. We had spent the day diving in the nearby fjord.

• Highest altitude (on land) - any of the meals we had in Tibet which has an average elevation exceeding 4,500 metres (14,800 ft).

• Most 'chillax' - at a hammock restaurant in Cambodia somewhere on the road between Tonle Sap and Siem Reap.

hammock restaurant near Tonle Sap, Cambodia

• Highest above ground - in April 2011 we were lucky enough to spend two nights in what was then the world's tallest hotel above ground - the Shanghai Park Hyatt. Our room was on the 81st floor and meals were in the restaurants on the 87th and 91st floors - almost 400 metres above ground.

• Highest on a building roof - in 2009 we were in Bangkok on my birthday and to celebrate we had dinner at the open-air Vertigo restaurant of the Banyan Tree Hotel, located on the hotel's 61st floor.

a vertigo-inducing dinner?

• Favourite dessert - at the Bistrot de la Porte des Lilas here in Reunion Island they have my all-time favourite dessert: discs of chocolate interspersed with raspberries and fresh cream :-)

my favourite dessert

What about you? Do you have any unique eating places to share?

North Korea: to visit or not to visit?

From an ethical point of view should you visit North Korea? What do you reply to anyone who says the money you paid for the trip has been spent on the North's missile and nuclear weapons programmes, and that tourists are helping to prop up the regime with their cash and visits that legitimise the administration? 

This was the subject of an article published on Deutsche Welle's website in which I'm quoted. I'll leave you to read the article here.

You can read the account of my 2010 trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea here.

What do you think about visiting? Let me know in the comments below.

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Alternate universe : Pyongyang

Charlie Crane is an advertising and editorial photographer in the UK. But his most stunning work is a personal project that he shot a few years ago, in North Korea’s capital city.

“If there is no possibility of getting underneath the surface then the answer was to photograph the surface itself,” Crane writes in his artist statement. In other words: “Photograph what they want you to see.” Crane’s North Korean minders couldn’t have guessed that the resulting images would depict such a sterile, empty city. Save for a handful of people—who are almost invariably shot alone, against static backgrounds that make them look like department-store mannequins—Pyongyang looks totally abandoned. (You’d think the neutron bomb had just hit.) And yet these photographs are chillingly beautiful, and all the more poignant for the suffering they somehow manage to exclude from the frame.

Check out some photos from Charlie Crane’s “Welcome to Pyongyang” series or see more of the photos on Crane’s website.

Other photographers with arresting photos of North Korea, particularly the Mass Games, are Sam Gellman and Werner Kranwetvogel.

via Very Short List.

You can read about my own trip to the DPRK here.

North of the Border

"Why are you going to North Korea ?"

"Why not ?" 

This was an exchange I had frequently before I made my trip to Pyongyang in August. Truth be said, I had an insatiable curiosity about the country on the other side of the DMZ. Books, articles and documentaries had only fuelled my curiosity even more. Knowing that I would have to travel to the DPRK via Beijing I took advantage of being in China over the summer to organise my trip from there.

After attending a briefing at the tour operator's headquarters the day before the trip, the next morning we took a bus to the airport for our Koryo Air flight. My companions were a mixture of Brits, Australians, Irish, German, Dutch, Swiss, Japanese and Americans (yes, Americans are allowed to visit the DPRK !). A short flight on a rather creaky plane with somewhat abrupt hostesses left us the time to peruse the only inflight reading material available : a copy of the weekly English-language "Pyongyang Times" which headlined "Kim Jong Il sees light comedy".

on board Koryo Air flight JS252

On arrival at Pyongyang our plane shared the tarmac with that of Jimmy Carter, who was in the country to secure the release of an imprisoned American.

Arrival at Pyongyang airport

Security officials checked our luggage before we could leave the airport, and while my copy of "The Woman In White" (written in 1859) passed muster, a friend was told that her copy of "Elle" magazine must absolutely leave the country with her. 

On the drive from the airport to our hotel I was surprised by how green the countryside was, and realised that I had been expecting unalleviated grey everywhere. Our hotel (one of only a handful in Pyongyang where foreigners are allowed to stay) stood on an island in the middle of the Taedong river. We were free to wander around the island but not any further.

view from our hotel

However the next thirty-six hours did not leave us with much time for wandering as we were launched into a whirlwind of sight-seeing. Our first, and symbolically most important, stop was to the Mansudae Grand Monument – the larger than life bronze statue of Kim Il Sung, where we had to lay flowers and bow.

Mansudae Grand Monument

Our next visit was to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum:

the Triumphal Arch (three metres higher than its French inspiration):

the Tower of the Juche Idea, Kim Il Sung's birthplace:

Juche Tower

We even found time to visit a stamp shop and bookshop. New releases advertised at the latter included "Kim Il Sung – the great man of the century" and "On the building of the Worker's Party Of Korea"; I don't know if books on other subjects are available in the DPRK, in any case if they are I never saw them.

We also visited the "USS Pueblo", a US surveillance vessel captured by the North Koreans in 1968:

USS Pueblo

and Kim Il Sung square – the place probably familiar to you from TV footage of soldiers marching in front of a saluting Kim Jong Il:

We were also given a ride on the Pyongyang Metro:

where, as is the case for all foreign visitors, we were shepherded on at 'Rehabilitation' station:

and alighted one stop later at 'Glory' station:

In the carriage we travelled under stern photographic portraits of father and son Kim.

The two stations were impressively decorated with chandeliers, marble platforms and vast murals depicting the heroic activities of Kim Il Sung.

While unfortunately we had few chances to talk to ordinary North Koreans, trips between our sights on foot or in our tour bus allowed us glimpses of everyday Pyongyang life.

By the way, the irony of travelling to the DPRK is that most people who go there are independent travellers – the sort of people who never normally take group coach tours, yet that is the only way a foreign visitor can travel in the country ! Our group of twenty was flanked at all times by three guides, a cameraman and the bus driver.

our bus driver and cameraman

one of our guides

Bright propaganda posters occasionally brightened the grey, brutalist architecture of Pyongyang, but the urban colour normally found in shopfronts, plastic bags, billboards and even petrol stations was noticeably missing.

propaganda poster

Neither did I see any pets. Most men wore identical charcoal-coloured suits, and women sported mainly plain, unpatterned clothes or hanboks (known in the DPRK as joseonot), some of which were knee-length. And due to the rain everyone seemed to be wearing wellington boots ! I saw more cars than I was expecting, but also long queues at bus stops waiting for crowded buses. However our guide informed us of the advantages of what was apparently the latest addition to Pyongyang's public transport system – double decker buses. As there are few traffic lights impeccably-clad baton-wielding traffic ladies directed the traffic at every major intersection with military precision.

traffic lady (in skirt and peaked cap)

Night-time was extremely dark, with few cars, minimum street-lighting and no neon signs. As evening occupations outside of the home are presumably few and far between, I saw that most apartments were lit, but dingily so.

Pyongyang by night

The high point of our stay was probably the chance to see the Mass Games.

poster advertising Mass Games

Cancelled the first night due to the rain, we were able to attend the following evening. Held in one of the world's largest stadiums:

Mayday stadium

This highly regimented gymnastic performance emphasizes group dynamics rather than individual skill, and participants number tens of thousands, many more than the audience in fact. The complex and highly choreographed group routines took place in front of a backdrop of card stunts – huge mosaic pictures created by schoolchildren each holding up coloured flip-book cards.

a scene from the Mass Games

A trip to the DRPK is on its government's terms and you have no real independence while there. The history you are told is very one-sided or even false (we were told how the USA started the Korean war for example), and total obedience to the state seems to be unquestioned. Internet does not exist and you are not allowed to use the country's currency. At times I felt I was part of a 1950s propaganda movie, or in George Orwell's "1984". But if you are ready to accept these terms you will find yourself visiting a fascinating country like no other on Earth.

Koryo flight plane back to Beijing

sign in airplane toilet during trip back

This article was originally published in SIWA's "Discovery" magazine (December 2010-January 2011 issue).

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

• July & August 2010 trip itinerary - Mongolia, China, Tibet 
• Steppe-ing Through Mongolia - our trip to Mongolia - this is the most visited post on my blog 
• Jolting through the Mongolian steppe - a short video 
• China, Part 1 - Beijing, Xian, Xining - the first part of our trip to China
• The Highest Railway in the World - the train journey from Xining to Lhassa 
• On The Roof Of The World - our trip to Tibet 
• The Tibetan way of working - a short video we filmed at Jokhang temple
• Vladivostok To Moscow : Travelling Across A Quarter Of The Globe by Train - the previous summer (2009) we travelled on the Transsiberian across Russia & Siberia.

Recommended DPRK reading:

• A Corpse in the Koryo (Inspector O Novels), by James Church follows Inspector O, an investigator in North Korea's internal security bureau. Written by a veteran Western intelligence official.
• The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot an account of Kang's 10-year imprisonment in a North Korean concentration camp.
• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick is a look at the daily lives of six defectors before they left North Korea.
• Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle is a graphic novel documenting the two months French-Canadian animator Delisle spent overseeing cartoon production in North Korea.

Other sights included the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum :

See also:

• Frogs in a Well: Literary Life in North Korea - February 9, 2010 article at Publishing Perspectives.
• The Capture of USS Pueblo - Radio 4 Witness Programme about the American spy ship that was captured by North Korean forces in 1968.

Gung-ho in Ganghwado?

Ganghwado is Korea's 5th largest island

This was one of several visits I made to Ganghwado, which is an anvil-shaped island off Korea's north-west coast (the -do in Korean means 'island'). I also spent a weekend there doing a temple stay in November 2008.

The island is less than two hours drive from Seoul, but is quite rural.

One of the sites to see is one of Korea's largest dolmens, Bugeun-ni.

the top stone weighs 50 tonnes

Along with dolmens at Gochang and Hwasun it is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

There are also other smaller dolmens on the island at Gocheon-ri.

This is a typical, more contemporary, Korean burial mound.

Like much of Korea's west coast, Ganghwado has tidal flats. This area ranks amongst the world's five largest tidal flat areas.

Something else we visited while on the island was the Ganghwa Peace Observatory.

The building has four storeys and a basement, and amongst other things includes an observatory (of course!), an exhibition space, and a restaurant.

It was a restricted military facility until September 2008, when it partially reopened for public access.

Located on the northernmost point of the island it offers unrestricted views across to North Korea.

note the barbed wire

The observatory was established "to promote mutual understanding between the two Koreas and built unified Korea which will be peaceful and prosperous".

North Korea is only 2 km away.

It's a reminder that Korea is the only divided country in the world. The two countries are separated by the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) since the end of the Korean War in 1953. An armistice has never been signed.

Difficult to know whether villages like the one below are real or "propaganda".

zooming in on North Korea