North Korea Travel Forum

wat is the most common rules in north korea?
wat is the best and the least things to do?
how will i socialized wth the koreans?
how can i gain some korean friends?

HI!

Most visits into North Korea are by organised tours from China or South Korea. They are some tours from other countries as well but they are all organised. You follow a strict itinerary and are supervised at all times by your tour guides. From what I know and read, you will pay orchestrated visits to performances, selected scenes and places and of course, pay your tributes at monuments dedicated to the country rulers.

North Korea does not welcome individual travellers nor backpackers.

Contact with the locals are negligible due to the regime in North Korea.

Addendum:

Check out the pages on N.Korea on VT and you'll know what I mean:
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/North_Korea/TravelGuide-North_Korea.html

>wat is the most common rules in north korea?

To "play along" with your guides. The relative freedom a traveler gets during his visit depends on many factors. Usually a (rare) visitor from the US will have as default less freedom than a more common visitor from China or Russia. That is, however, can be "corrected" both ways depending on visitor's diplomatic skills. :-)

>wat is the best and the least things to do?

best: careful constructive approach to things in general. Know the places worth to visit of politically NEUTRAL character (national parks, old historic sites, etc) and know, what one of the two main political personalities said about these/visited these. Than approach the guide with a good question like:
"I know, Comrade K. visited this site on 19xx/xx/xx and he said "xxxxxxxxxxxxx". It woulf be of a great memory for all of us to visit that site and pay tribute"

Worst (this is probably a silly question): bring your own "grass" and offer it to the customs officer in exchange for some "blackmarket" money or vandalize some state property (railroads, airport, etc.). I think, "olddude" is reading this answer and laugh his butt off.

"how will i socialized wth the koreans? how can i gain some korean friends?"
See, this is really tough because the Korean guides and interpreters will try their best to prevent you from that INSIDE of Korea - but they cannot do ANYTHING outside of it. Next year the Olympics games are coming to China. NK wants it's own share of tourists (that's good) but they want CONTROLLED tourists, that's less good. I expect them to be at least temporarily more open. There is a somewhat "neglected" entry route, now confimed as possible - entry via Khasan/Tumangan border. That place is where world's longest rail service (twice-monthly Phenjan-Moscow sleeping car) enters/leaves Korea. It is NOT the more popular Chinese route.

The pictures of the Korean car are on www.railfaneurope.net (BECAUSE N.KOREA IS EUROPE!!!).
Loot at http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix_frameset.html and chose NKorean flag on the left.

Again, North Korea is EUROPE. So is Mongolia, China, VietNam (from railway politics and tariff politics point of view, not geographically, of course). What it implies, is that the service selling European tickets overseas is more often than not either a ripp-off or simply lacking knowledge. For overseas visitor from thatpoint of view North Korea is like Austria: NEVER EVER BUY TICKETS AND RESERVATIONS OVERSEAS.
Typically, the Overseas offices have no clout (I asked!) about even a mere existence of the N.Korean sleeping car and thougt, it's a fake or what-not. They tried to convince me, it is not possible to buy train tickets for N.Korean trains. Rubbish. The pictures of NKorean car are there to prove.

Also on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1wMqNCeG0w

That is the world's longest ride.

If you are lucky, there will be Koreans on that train (besides of the crew, of course). The crew is carefully selected (obviously), but the passengers are mostly Koreans visiting their relatives in Russia. That gives opportunity to socialize. And as it was written, you don't even need a Korean visa to ride the Korean car within Russia, only a Russian visa.

I just got back from a 5 day trip in DPRK in September. As the previous posts suggest, you will not have opportunities to wonder or interact with the locals.

You will be shown what they want you to see. If you ask politely, you may have some influence into what you can see, or might be able to add/remove things from your itineraries, but it will all be escorted.

You will not be allowed to interact with any locals outside of the hotel reception desk, store clerks or tour guides.

I just wrote several pages on my experiences there. Search the North Korea pages for more.