The Vice Guide to Travel

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(Now Playing) Vice Guide to North Korea 1 of 3

Mar 3, 2008

Getting into North Korea was one of the hardest and weirdest processes VBS has ever dealt with. After we went back and forth with their representatives for months, they finally said they were going to allow 16 journalists into the country to cover the Arirang Mass Games in Pyongyang. Then, ten days before we were supposed to go, they said, “No, nobody can come.” Then they said, “OK, OK, you can come. But only as tourists.” We had no idea what that was supposed to mean. They already knew we were journalists, and over there if you get caught being a journalist when you’re supposed to be a tourist you go to jail. We don’t like jail. And we’re willing to bet we’d hate jail in North Korea. But we went for it. The first leg of the trip was a flight into northern China. At the airport, the North Korean consulate took our passports and all of our money, then brought us to a restaurant. We were sitting there with our tour group, and suddenly all the other diners left and these women came out and started singing North Korean nationalist songs. We were thinking, “Look, we were just on a plane for 20 hours. We’re jet-lagged. Can we just go to bed?” but this guy with our group who was from the LA Times told us, “Everyone in here besides us is secret police. If you don’t act excited then you’re not going to get your visa. So we got drunk and jumped up onstage and sang songs with the girls. The next day we got our visas. A lot of people we had gone with didn’t get theirs. That was our first hint at just what a freaky, freaky trip we were embarking on…
— VBS Founder Shane Smith

  • heyjoe

    10 days ago

    the whole time you had no intention besides dissing them, and you wonder why they don't want to l...

  • WujouMao

    16 days ago

    Good Doco mate. hey, you know all that wasted food in the hotel was paid for by you. well, i woul...

  • notjoelschneier

    17 days ago

    My students got a real kick out of the Guide to North Korea episodes. Kudos on getting across the...

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In the Vice Guide to Travel, correspondents from VBS and Vice magazine are dispatched around the world to visit the planet’s most dangerous and weird destinations.

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