For sale: North Korea holiday, no Clintons necessary

OK, so now are you ready to take that trip to North Korea?

Klaus Billep, president of Santa Monica-based Universal Travel Systems, thinks you might be. Now that journalist-hostages Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been released after crossing into North Korea from China and being seized on March 17, Billep is reminding Americans that there’s a legal way to visit the hermit kingdom. And he can arrange it, no Clinton contacts are necessary.

“Most Americans don’t realize that it’s legal,” Billep says.

Here is what the State Department says about travel to the country, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The key, says Billep, is the country’s Arirang Festival — this year, from Aug. 2 to Oct. 7 — which features something like 100,000 gymnasts, dancers, singers and other performers in a stadium that holds about 100,000 spectators. During the festival, Billep says, North Korea grants visas to American tourists. In fact, he says, the North Koreans are allowing Americans to stay four nights this year, up from three nights in previous years.

But the trip is not everybody’s cup of tea. Even if you’re not put off by the idea of visiting an “Axis of Evil” nation (the words of President George W. Bush in 2002) or encouraging a rogue government that’s eagerly building nuclear weaponry, the itinerary might give you pause.

On arrival, you’re met by a guide who will stay with you and drive you to see sites in and around the capital, Pyongyang, a modern, eerily quiet city that was mostly built after the Korean War. You stay in a Western-style hotel — almost certainly the Hotel Yanggakdo or the Koryo International — and take all meals there.

In central Pyongyang, Billep says, you see “empty streets, five lanes downtown, but no cars because there’s no private car ownership. The only cars you see are government cars. No discos, no movies, no Western restaurants… There’s nothing else to do, so they run sightseeing from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. When you come home, you’re tired.”

To meet other travelers, there’s only one place to go: the hotel bar. To meet locals — well, forget it.

“They walk away if you approach a local citizen,” says Billep. “They’re scared. But then, they don’t speak English anyhow.”

You can call the U.S. from those hotels, Billep says, and you can take photos around town as long as you avoid military installations.

“I’ve walked up to policemen and said, ‘Can I take your picture?’ They say sure. They don’t care. It’s like here — common courtesy,” says Billep.

For a Times account of a 2005 trip to North Korea arranged by Billep’s company, click here.

Billep has been arranging these trips for eight years, he says, and last year sent about 200 travelers to North Korea. This year, he says, he has booked about 40 , but he stopped marketing the trips while the journalists were being held. In June, the two were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Now that they’re back after a meeting between former president Bill Clinton and leader Kim Jong Il, Billep says, he’s hoping to reach 100 to 150 travelers.

Who are these people?

“Most of the people we get are country-collectors. Others are curious about what they have to offer,” says Billep.

(Apart from the Universal Travel system, which he has run since 1971, Billep also runs the Travelers’ Century Club, which is open to travelers who have visited 100 countries of more. Billep, who puts his own country count at about 270 over 40 years of travel, claims about 2,000 members in the club.)

From Aug. 2 to Oct. 7, Billep’s company offers weeklong trips including the North Korea stopover. Typically they begin on a Wednesday, with a night in Beijing, four nights in Pyongyang, another night in Beijing, and return to Los Angeles the following Tuesday. The land cost is $3,460 per person (all meals included), and coach-class airfare on Asiana Airlines from Los Angeles is $1,289.

On the sightseeing itinerary: Mangyongdae, the birthplace of leader Kim II Sung (who died in 1994, leaving son Kim Jong Il in charge; Mangyong Hill; the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum; Kaesong (an ancient Korean capital, famous for its ginseng); a 10th century pagoda; the 14th century Sonjuk Bridge; Arirang Festival events and a night at the national circus.

— Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

Top photo: A monument in Pyongyang, North Korea. Lower photo: North Korean officials on the job. Images courtesy of Klaus Billep, Universal Travel Systems.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 2:14 pm by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under Arts & Culture, Asia, Global, News, Tips & Advice, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.