Return to the last stop

I woke to a sky full of drizzle as the train neared Beijing. I had spent the night on one of the Chinese rail system's "hard sleepers", which meant that there were six bunks in the carriage, the top ones, one of which I occupied, taking a claustrophobia-inducing amount of space centimetres from the ceiling. It hadn't mattered. Sleeping had been easy. Now there was time to sit reading on the small fold-down seat in the corridor as the other passengers squeezed to and fro. We could only wait.

We arrived in Beijing at around 10 a.m., the square in front of the station crowded with the throngs of people, the ground wet and mucky from the rain that had fallen throughout the morning. I could remember the way to Tiananmen Square, and walked now in its direction.

I checked in at Leo Hostel. I stayed in this very place a few years ago. I walked through the courtyard at the back of the building and up the stairs to where the dorm had been on my previous visit, my memory triggered by sight. The cheap tiles had been replaced by cosy wooden flooring, the old bathroom now a laundry room. The computer room in the social area, redundant in this age of wifi, is now the TV room.

Outside, the streets south of Qianmen Station are almost unrecognisable. A glossy street of Western chain stores and souvenir shops now exists at a place where I can clearly remember clambering over half-dug ditches. I asked the receptionist at the hostel. She said this street was finished in 2009, the year after the Beijing Olympics. The atmosphere of the street right outside Leo's, meanwhile, remains much the same, a welcoming mixture of tourists, street food sellers and stands selling Mao satchels and military-style hats adorned with the red star.

When I stayed at Leo Hostel in 2006 I met a girl by the name of Hannah, who was about to leave for her home in England. She gave me a padlock as she no longer needed it and I had none. I attached it to a cord on the front of my backpack and promptly lost the key; the padlock has been there ever since, performing its useless function everywhere I have been. It was joined at some later date by a second padlock for which I do have the key but have not bothered to remove from the hook. I had noticed the padlocks for the first time in a while the previous day, when one of my fellow DPRK tourists had absent-mindedly toyed with them as she sat next to my backpack on the train from Pyongyang.

After I arrived at the 2013 version of Leo's, having checked in, I put the backpack down on the floor of the dorm and went to open the front pocket. After seven years of use, the cord had broken. The padlocks were lost.

I walked around the city with a friend from the DPRK trip. We took the metro to the headquarters of the aptly-named CCTV, the Chinese state television, a twin skyscraper joined at the top by a kind of dog-leg tunnel, a symbol of the unstoppable proliferation of construction in Beijing over the last couple of decades. We walked through a leafy embassy quarter and then Ritan Park, where children played on exercise equipment, adults sat by the lake, and couples danced the waltz to the sound of rustling leaves and trickling water.

Wandering through the old working-class quarters in the north of the city, the hutongs, as the sun set, we eventually arrived at the modern high street near Tiananmen Square, where there are always so many people that you can not walk in a straight line. The Square itself was closed to pedestrians. The entire front of the red pavilion at its northern end was under scaffolding, apart from the famous portrait of Mao, which we could see at an oblique angle from the adjacent road.

That was more or less the last thing I did on this by-land-and-by-sea journey from Tokyo to Beijing. I sat in the cafe at Leo Hostel and made the last preparations for the leap home and then I was invited by some French girls to join them and a group of other people as they celebrated someone's birthday. Something must have changed. After they went to bed, I finished my work, and turned in at about 3 a.m.

Arirang - Mass Games

Arirang, a spectacular of mass-coordinated dance, gymnastics and music, 100,000-strong in performers alone, is an annual event in Pyongyang and a highlight of any visit there during the summer months in which it takes place.

The May Day National Stadium, home to the festival, is a giant venue, the roof of the circular stands formed by a continuous concrete structure that looks like a giant clam shell turned upside down. The moment we arrived, we could feel the energy of the performance. Soldiers on their way in to the stadium marched briskly in formation, singing in unison as they went.

We walked up the steps. Usually, when entering a stadium, you can see the fans in the stand on the opposite side. Here, we saw the brightly-coloured display of the thousands of children holding up cards in coordination as they would continue to do throughout the evening, producing propaganda, cartoons, patterns, the leaders' portraits, war scenes and innumerable other things.

The sheer improbability of the performance itself, its numbers, the gymnastics, the acrobatics, the music, the dancing and the movement, was astonishing. It started with a traditional Korean love story (which gives the festival the name "Arirang"), before giving the local version of the history of the Korean War, included in this year's performance due to it being 65 years since the ceasefire - or "victory" as the North Koreans know it. Then there were children skipping or dancing with hoops and on unicycles; gymnastics with materials in coordinated colours providing large-scale props and landscapes such as crashing waves; and trapeze artists performing stunts from the height of the stadium itself.

Every colour imaginable was involved. The music, played by a brass band (it may have been a recording), went from pompous to patriotic to stirring. Each new act started with a fresh burst of energy and colour that was in direct correlation with the output of each individual performer.

The finale was a nationalistic depiction of a reunited Korea, the propaganda in full flow, the slogans in the background pounding the message home. The full meaning was lost on me. The visual impact was not. Somersaults, dance, light, flags and arms moving to create a sea, a tide on the vast stage. This is probably the closest I can come to describing Arirang, for it is a visual spectacular, not one designed for words, and one without comparable equivalent in any place outside this strange land of North Korea.

A day out in North Korea

It is possible to spend hours in Pyongyang being driven from one impressive, bombastic monument to the Juche Idea, the Korean adaptation of Marxism, after another. We only had a single full day in the city, and our guides were determined that we would make the most of it. This is the way trips to North Korea work: you may not travel without a guide, and the guides have the final say over what you are allowed to see.

We liked our guides: the serious, senior Mr. Ju, with his rimless spectacles and short-sleeved casual shirt. Mr. Kim, older, smiling, a football fan who talked up North Korea's quarter-final appearance in the 1966 World Cup, while claiming that South Korea reaching the semi-finals in 2002 was a less impressive achievement, "Because they played in their home country". His partisanship soon melted when I brought up the 2010 World Cup though, as he joked about his country's 7-0 defeat against Portugal in that tournament. Then there was Miss Choe, the youngest of the three guides, with her heels and smart handbag and efficient, business-like knowledge and presentation.

There were so many statues and monuments that now, just a short time later, it is difficult to recall each one. At the statues of the leaders - always referred to as "President Kim Il-sung" and "Comrade Kim Jong-il" - we were obliged to lay flowers in front of the towering brass figures. After we had done this and retreated to take photos, a group of nursery school-age girls did the same, wearing shiny buckle shoes and frilly dresses and lead by their two teachers.

We visited a book shop on a busy street corner, where you can purchase such titles as "The U.S. Imperialists Started the Korean War" and "Kim Jong-il on the Juche Thought". From here we walked to Kim Il-sung Square, where the huge military parades take place. Today it was quiet. Anyone who wandered too far from the group was quickly called back, or even stopped by an interested "passer-by" who would shepherd them back in the right direction.

At the memorial site for the martyrs of the resistance movement against the Japanese occupation, we laid flowers for a second time. Here, there is row upon row of busts depicting the martyrs in affectionately close detail. There are hundreds of busts in all, looking over the city from a hill top, the monuments and skyscrapers and giant triangular form of the Ryugong Hotel looking like the front cover of a science fiction paperback.

On we drove. A guide in traditional costume showed us the birthplace of Kim Il-sung, set in an idyllic park where the cicadas buzzed. A group of local women and children arrived at the collection of restored huts where the Great Leader spent his childhood. We asked them to join us for a picture. Apprehensive at first, once a couple joined they relaxed and we took a picture, and said "thank you" and "goodbye" and whatever else we could manage in our on-the-hoof Korean. We showed them the pictures and the children crowded around to see them as children do everywhere.

By now it was late afternoon. We were taken for a five-stop ride on the Pyongyang Metro. Mr. Ju stated that Western rumours of the Pyongyang Metro consisting of only two stops and being full of actors, only there for the sake of tourists, are the product of "crazy imaginations". He had a point. This is at least one well-known rumour about North Korea that is obvious nonsense.

We went down into the station, a small, brown concrete building, the tunnel at the bottom of a deep escalator. On the platform, chandeliers looked as though they were powered by 60W bulbs and tiled mosaics of socialist murals adorned the walls, a far more attractive sight than the usual advertising seen in metro stations all over the world. Guards in dark blue uniforms stood at the edge holding red flags and inscrutable expressions. The inside of the train was dark with wood panelling and pictures of the leaders hung over the end of each carriage. We crowded in amongst the locals on their way home from work.

At the Pyongyang No.1 Department Store it was closing time. The shop assistants were all young women, wearing a uniform of a white blouse and bright pink skirt. I waited outside the front entrance near the bus. Two of the shop assistants left by the front door, turning right down a slope before disappearing around the back of the building. A third appeared and followed their path, before a fourth stopped near where I was standing and called out to her. They had a short discussion before the third girl turned on her heels, spinning 360 degrees to avoid a manhole cover, the breeze ruffling her uniform, and also vanished around the corner.

The Chongnyon Hotel has a karaoke room. Any other options for socialising after a hard day of sightseeing were lacking, so we decided to try it out. At first we were few and apprehensive. It was Miss Choe, our sensible and professional Korean guide, who broke the ice. She gave a respect-worthy rendition of Celine Dion's Titanic theme "My Heart Will Go On", which, rather than feeling awkward, made it natural to take part, and encouraged us all to try ourselves. Soon everyone was singing, not least of all yours truly, as I found myself, much to my surprise, desperately searching through the karaoke machine's list of songs for "Somewhere Beyond the Sea". Mr. Kim joined us and, later, Mr. Ju, who was less serious than his usual self after a beer or two. More members of our tour group arrived bearing gift shop liquor and good humour. It was a party.

Someone attempted to rap "Forgot About Dre" to hilarious consequences. Electric Six's "Gay Bar" was sung in duet to the nonplussed looks of the Koreans, who contributed with their own more traditional style of music. My next contribution was Barry Manilow's "Mandy", which I took far too seriously. One of the waitresses from the karaoke room's bar joined in. She was an expert and the only person to hit all the correct notes, doing this while waving her arms around like a pro. She then gave a performance of Flashdance, recreating the moves to perfection in what was probably the most bizarre moment, and fitting end to, a day and evening featuring some of the strangest and most memorable things I have ever seen.

DPRK trip: Photo & video album