#nampho

https://www.wordproject.org/bibles/kr/41/1.htm장 16

DPRK Day 2; Nampho and Kaesong We traveled out to west Sea Barrage; built to manage the water flow at the mouth of the Taedong River, sustaining a vast fresh water reservoir, keeping salt water from entering the rice paddies and managing shipping with 3 huge (50k tonne) boat locks whilst linking two provinces with a many mile long causeway. Very interesting self-promotional ‘making of’ video and who doesn’t like a scale model of civil engineering works! A stroll around a collective farm (roughly 1,000 farmers split into work units and growing staple foods for both state and their village with rice etc divide according to role and amount of work) with a mural made by the country’s art unit in Pyongyang and leader’s sculptures presumably made by the same artist in same stylisation as the massive bronzes overlooking the capital. We heard a lot about 'on the spot guidance’ being given by leaders and willingly received by farmers. Back to Pyongyang for yet more food. Very tasty cabbage, gerkins, sour fermented spiced pickles. Good beer. Tasty kimchi and steamed rice. Then down in the car to Kaesong City below the 38th parallel. The whole journey from Pyongyang to the West Sea and also down to the DMZ was 100 miles of lush, green and fertile fields with rice paddys and sweetcorn growing most places and soy bean fields, vegetables and rolling hills between craggy rocks with occasional goat herds. Intersected by a wide, straight road with every crest cut through a pass with concrete stacked tank traps leaning over ready to be collapsed into the road. Occasional military checkpoints manned by student aged soldiers which took only a few seconds to be waved through as we passed practically no other vehicles in the whole day. Other than the giant and rowdy Chinese coach parties at the DMZ there were very few other tourists and we had most monuments, sites of interest or museum to ourselves, only meeting an older Aussie couple and two Dutch friends over the 3 days as well as seeing some retired American tour groups buying up every XXXL t-shirt in the gift shops. 95+% of the 200,000 or so annual tourists are Chinese; who broke into unprompted applause when our army guide explained how if America invades again there would be no second armistice as there would be no one on the American side left to sign any agreement. I think it was fair to say we were ceremonially placed on the south side of the negotiation table which gave the Chinese tourists plenty of opportunities to take photos of us, opposite the northern side. Our visit to Kaesong city and stay in an old courtyard house was very nice; partly just to sit in the cooler courtyard of our house, shoes off, listening to the sound of birdsong and fruit dropping from the persimmon tree into the small reflecting pool in the centre. Kaesong city is below the 38th parallel so whilst it changed hands in the Korean war and subsequently the DMZ was drawn up south of the city it was not subject to heavy aerial bombardment, thus many old curved tiled roof houses remained; winding streets and little waterways crossed by stone bridges. We were able to visit the tomb of the founding leader of ancient Koryo and listened to our guides dreams of reunification. Another rather extravagant meal followed, whilst it was very nice to be hosted in such a generous way we did feel guilty for not eating everything or perhaps not leaving more, I do hope our leftovers were not wasted. We were treated to an after dinner performance on the Korean harp with some rousing soviet style marching music performed excellently in the floor seated dining hall. Each meal in our tour package was served with a beer and a water which suited us a treat, though Kaesong is famous for ginseng, known for promoting long life. I can only imagine it works by pickling the internal organs, as after we put a sizable dent into a bottle of 52% ginseng spirit with Mr. Pak and Mr. O in the hotel bar I didn’t feel like I was heading towards longevity! At this point we had a power cut (or possibly it was just turned off for the night) so the barmaid produced a candle so we could continue in a flickering flame (and iPhone) lit bar. There’s a true love of singing in the country so we exchanged songs, all the classics came out; In The Bleak Midwinter and Home & Away featured at some point whilst traditional folk songs such as arirang were brilliantly performed by our guides as well as the other North Koreans in the bar. As we were the only foreigners present we had a great time, drinking, singing and being quizzed about the history of London and asked our opinions on everything from Greece’s potential euro exit, London’s Victorian sewerage system, the music from the film Titanic and the current British Royal family The Englishman