My craving to visit North Korea began in 2002 at a backpacker's bar on the outskirts of Beijing, when my son Gil and I attended the showing by Scotsman Nicholas Bonner of his documentary film, "The Game of Their Lives." The film featured North Korea's 1966 World Cup soccer team, which reached the semi-finals in London before losing to Portugal and disappearing forever behind the Iron Curtain.
Bonner had spliced together archival footage of the games, Korea's miracle defeat of the vaunted Italians, and interviews with the players more than 30 years later.
What stunned me in that film were the tears of the aging players, whose one goal in playing was to glorify their leader, Kim Il Sung.
Kim Il Sung died in 1994, but is still honored as president of his nation, so isolated from the rest of the world it is known as the Hermit Kingdom.
When the showing was over, I asked Bonner if I, too, could visit North Korea. He said he and his partner, Simon Cockerell, could take me in on a tour: I signed up immediately, but shortly afterward, George Bush's speech about the Axis of Evil barred any Americans from getting in.
That was six years ago. Earlier this month - thanks to Global Exchange in San Francisco - I finally made it to North Korea.
We weren't there long: what had been scheduled as an eight-day "delegation" to North Korea was cut back to a four-day "tour," with no explanations whatsoever.
Six of us who had signed up were denied entry at the last minute. Two of our group had actually gone to Shenyang, the departure point in northeast China, the year before and been turned away; they came back, and this time got in.
Our whole tour was as quixotic as that.
The brochure for Koryo Tours, run by Bonner and Cockerell, warned journalists not to try to pass themselves off as tourists: their money would be confiscated, and they would be denied entry.
I had no intention of being a "journalist" - I simply wanted to go, and knew that in any case I would see only what the North Korean authorities wanted me to see.
But as a precaution, I took unpaid leave from my job, and hoped I'd be protected should questions arise.
At least two other members of our 13-person delegation were writers-on-the sly. It has always amused me that countries think they can keep visitors from writing about their experiences, journalists or no.
I remember being turned down for entry into Syria because I had listed myself as a newspaper writer. I just resubmitted my request, calling myself a homemaker, and got a visa by return mail. So much for Syrian security.
To protect me, my travel companion to North Korea (also known as DPRK) forbade me to take notes during our travels; he took notes for me. Of course he also broke all the DPRK rules by shooting pictures wherever we went. On the bus, I cocked one leg up to cover his camera; he shot willy-nilly (while honoring our guides' explicit rule not to photograph soldiers).
We flew into the North Korean capital of Pyongyang from Shenyang in a truly ancient Russian TU154, what seemed like a reject from Aeroflot, always the scariest airline I had ever flown. The air conditioning was a paper fan doled out to each passenger.
We were still half-expecting to be turned away and my friend Rowland was held up half an hour outside the terminal because he didn't have a proper (totally trivial) piece of paper.
But finally - after numerous checkpoints and military stamps on our visas - we were actually in Pyongyang.
We had known beforehand about the desperate lack of electric power in North Korea: we were shocked nonetheless when - as our bus left the airport for the long drive to our hotel, every light in the airport was abruptly turned off.
We were on our way into the heart of darkness.
Beth Ashley's column, Since You Asked, appears Thursdays. Contact her at bashley@marinij.com.
