Gold Coast company leads tourists on holiday ‘escape’ to North Korea

A GOLD Coast company is giving intrepid travellers a chance to explore the most mysterious and controversial place on earth: North Korea.

A GOLD Coast company is giving intrepid travellers a chance to explore the most mysterious and controversial place on earth: North Korea.

Known as the Hermit Kingdom, the secretive Communist dictatorship has a long history of shutting out the rest of the world and is as closed and tightly controlled as ever under the leadership of Kim Jong-un.

That hasn’t stopped independent Coast company Travel Masters from guiding small groups of curious locals on bespoke tours of North Korea every August for the past eight years.

Managing director Neil Kirby lead the 2016 and 2017 tours and will return to North Korea again in August 2018.

He said the tours were a reminder of the common bond of humanity, whatever political views people hold.

Neil Kirby, general manager of Travel Masters, at Nerang — the only Australian agency leading independent, bespoke tours to North Korea. Photo: Richard Gosling

“People’s biggest misconception is that it’s a Truman Show style environment where everything’s staged for you, that you do exactly what you’re told to do, that you will go where you are told to go and that couldn’t be any further from the truth,” he said.

“We have a lot of interaction with the Northern Koreans. Our itinerary has been designed in association with them and we can make spot changes depending on the environment.

“They are very wary, very suspicious of westerners which does cause a few problems but a lot of them are very curious and they will approach us and they want to know more about our culture, they want to listen to our music, they want to hear about our families.

“It’s a very warm — as far as the general public — a very warm place.”

Travel Masters’ Neil Kirby in North Korea in August with two English-speaking government travel guides and two local women in traditional dress. Photo: Supplied.

One of the world’s most inaccessible and least-visited countries, North Korea is surrounded by three of the world’s great powers — China, Russia and Japan. Conditions for tourists are comfortable but austere, with significant limits on what they can and can’t do.

Mr Kirby said the 13-day tours were subject to change but usually saw travellers fly from Brisbane to Guangzhou, in China, and on to Shanghai before crossing the border into North Korea by rail from Dandong.

The travellers are met by two government tour guides who stay with them for the next five days until they fly out of Pyongyang International Airport to Beijing on Koryo Air — the world’s only one-star airline.

Mr Kirby said the tours appealed to experienced, older travellers and retired couples.

“We get a lot of retired couples looking for interesting and memorable travel experiences who want to see the country for themselves.”

The tours run in August to coincide with Liberation Day National Holiday, which commemorates the Korean defeat over the Japanese.

Mr Kirby, who co-hosts a weekly hour-long travel show on Gold Coast radio 94.1FM on Saturdays from 10am, said North Korea was home to beautiful mountain ranges, incredible monuments and artefacts.

Nerang travel agent Neil Kirby in North Korea. Photo: Supplied.

“Most people are surprised to see that North Korea has a history that dates beyond the Korean War,” he said.

“The actual Korean peninsula has got thousands of years of history and we do go to a lot of these places around North Korea where we see tombs of previous kings that date back hundreds of years.

“It’s not just the modern history, it’s not just what’s happening in the last 40, 50 years — it’s hundreds of years of rich culture, language, food, history. It’s just such a fascinating country.”

A destination focused agency founded on the Coast 26 years ago, Travel Masters has lead high-end tours to countries including India, South America, Africa and Mongolia and Silk Road in Tibet.