In the final installment of our series on North Korea, we take you to the northern part of the country to give you a rare glimpse of the area’s pristine natural beauty.
On the face of Ongnyon Mountain is a felsenmeer, or sea of rock, that extends several kilometers. Underneath, a river flows. This incredible bed of granite is dubbed Rock River. To reach it we follow a river out of North Korea’s second-largest city, Hamhung. After three hours spent on bumpy mountain roads we finally cross the Pujon Plateau and arrive at the Ongnyon trailhead.
Ongnyon Mountain is on the border of Hamgyong-namdo. Sunny weather and clear views from the peak reveal the nearby provinces of Ryanggang-do and Chagang-do. Usually the 2,164-meter-high Ongnyon Mountain is covered in a cloud of mist.
On top of the mountain are five towering, nameless rock towers. When Kim Il-sung’s first wife, Kim Jong-suk, was 20 years old, she stayed on Pujon Plateau for a month to help her husband band together guerrillas fighting the Japanese. Legend has it she slept in a room built under one of the towers.
Ongnyon Mountain Guide
The mother of the honorable general Kim Jong-il, the Japanese resistance fighter Kim Jong-suk, slept one night in the room under this rock when she came to Ongnyon Mountain in August 1937.
Each granite rock is at least 2 or 3 cubic meters. They start from the peak of Ongnyon Mountain and seem to flow downward, extending 6 kilometers. North Koreans call this magnificent scene Rock River and say it began to form 120,000 years ago during the ice age. After 115,000 years underwater, the beautiful landscape seen today was left behind. Some sections of rock have been covered by trees but this section, 820-meters long and 60-meters wide, is mostly bare.
Anne Hu
FTV News Chief
Standing here we can hear loud flowing water because under these thousands of rocks is a river. Summer is rainy season. It’s impossible for us to know the volume of water flowing underneath.
From above the raging river is concealed. But when winter arrives and the river volume drops, at least 10,000 tons of water passes by each second. A layer of white snow covers the rocks, creating a new landscape. At one time this land was forgotten, but officials rediscovered it in 1988 and opened it to the public in 2001. Few people know of it. The environment is clean and free of pollution.
North Korea Tourism Bureau
You can see the beauty of the land. We hope local journalists come and report on it and more foreign guests visit.
North Korea Tourism Bureau
Tourists generally come in the summer, between May and September. They first bathe in the sea at Hamhung then go hiking on Ongnyon Mountain and Rock River. Foreign tourists are mostly from Europe and the United States.
Few tourists from the Asia Pacific have visited Ongnyon Mountain because Chinese, Southeast Asians and the growing number of Taiwanese visitors usually enter Pyongyang via Shenyang. They typically only have five days and go no farther than the 38th parallel. Western tourists, most of whom come from the E.U., tend to gather at North Korean travel agencies based in Beijing. From there they fly with a guide to Pyongyang and usually spend more than 10 days in North Korea. The longer trip gives them time to visit Mount Kumgang, Baekdu Mountain’s Heaven Lake and Ongnyon Mountain. When hiking or swimming, they can interact with locals. Even when citizens face food shortages, the tourists can try traditional barbecue, gasoline-baked clams and kimchi.
British Travel Worker
(Is it your first time here?)
No, it’s my 22nd time.
(What? Because you…)
I work for a travel company.
(You’ve been working here for how long?)
For two years I’ve been working for a travel company, Korea Tours, based in Beijing.
(So whenever the European tourist comes to Pyongyang you are responsible to guide them.)
We don’t guide them. Obviously we have the Korean guides here in Pyongyang, but we help to organize tours for Europeans and other westerners to come to this country.
Swiss Tourist
I’ve been to South Korea twice, and this year will be my third time, so I think it’s quite worth to come here and see how it actually is because our media in the west is just showing us pictures, opinions we have not built for ourself. So I think it’s quite interesting to see it by ourselves.
The more closed North Korea is, the more curious outsiders become. Additional sanctions from the United States, Japan and South Korea only attract tourists. North Korea’s unique society and its pristine natural scenery are its greatest weapons. To the North Korean government, tourism is more than a valuable source of foreign currency. It is a chance to promote its culture and political system. This is Anne Hu, Ku Te-chuan and Johnson Lee in an exclusive report from North Korea.
南有金剛山，北有玉蓮山。北朝鮮因為鎖國，對外開放有限，名山大勝維持著無污染的天然美景，尤其是北部赴戰高原的玉蓮山石頭河，長達六公里的花崗巨石，一般只有前往旅遊十天以上的觀光客，才能欣賞到。事實上，北朝鮮旅遊分為針亞太觀光客的五天行程，以及歐美觀光客的十天以上行程。接下來的單元，要帶您一窺玉蓮山美景，也看看什麼樣的人，願意十天不使用手機、不上網，前往北朝鮮觀光。
玉蓮山下石海奇景，花崗巨石鋪陳數里，石下流水狂奔，這壯碩景觀，被稱為石頭河，從朝鮮第二大城咸興乘車，沿著城川河向上游回溯，三小時的山路，一路顛簸地，我們攀上咸鏡南道的赴戰高原，抵達玉蓮山
玉蓮山位於咸鏡南道邊境，從山頂，可以眺望鄰近的兩江道和慈江道，我們抵達採訪的這天，少見的陽光普照，視野清晰，因為多數時候，海拔兩千一百六十四公尺的玉蓮山，籠罩在飄渺的雲霧間
玉蓮山頂有五座巨石塔，都還沒有命名，金日成夫人金正淑，早在二十歲，抗日時期，就待過赴戰高原一個月，協助夫婿金日成組織游擊隊，有一晚，據說還曾睡在這其中，一座大石塔下的石頭室
[[玉蓮山解說員]]
“我們尊敬的金正日將軍的母親，也是抗日的先鋒金正淑女士，在一九三七年八月，來到這個玉蓮山時，就在這石頭山下的房屋，住了一天”
一顆顆至少，兩三立方公尺大的花崗巨石，從玉蓮山頂開始斜滑出長達六公里的壯麗美景，北朝鮮稱為石頭河，他們說這裡是早在，十二萬年前的冰河時期開始，經過十一萬五千年的沖洗，直到五千年前，才形成了眼前的特殊美景，有些石頭河段已被樹林覆蓋，景象清晰的就是長八百二十公尺，寬六十公尺的這一段
[[經理]]
“站在這裡我們可以聽到，龐大的流水聲，因為在這個，成千上萬的巨大石頭底下，正有河水流經過，可是因為夏天是雨季，到底有多大的水流量經過，目前是無法統計的”
萬馬奔騰的河流，從石頭上方看不到，但即使到了冬天，流水量減少，還確定至少有每秒一萬噸的水流量，上層的石頭覆上皚皚白雪，另有一番景緻，然而深藏山林間的玉蓮山石頭奇景，卻是在一九八八年，才被北朝鮮當局重新發現，二００一年正式對外觀光開放，因此知道的人並不多，維持著潔淨的無污染生態
[[朝鮮觀光總局宣傳旅遊社社長 高松一]]
“你也看到這裡的環境，真的很漂亮，希望讓很多，我們國內(朝鮮)的記者，來這裡參觀並且報導，也讓外國的客人多多來參觀”
[[朝鮮觀光總局副局長 趙成奎]]
“一般都是夏天來，從五月份到九月份，最主要是他們先到咸興做海浴，海水浴完了，就抽時間爬山，到這兒來，參觀玉蓮山跟石頭河，國外遊客最主要是，歐美客比較多 “
過去少有亞太觀光客，來到玉蓮山，因為來自中國，東南亞和逐漸增量的台灣觀光客，大都經由瀋陽搭機，入境平壤，觀光行程平均只有五天，一般最遠只到南北三十八度分界線，而歐美觀光客，還是以來自歐盟國家的居多，他先在北京集合，透過外圍的高麗旅行社，帶領搭機，入境平壤，行程一般都是，超過十天的深度旅遊，因為時間夠長，除了金剛山，白頭山天池，以及玉蓮山等名山大勝之外，在登山戲水的過程當中，有機會接觸當地民眾，而不論北朝鮮是否缺糧，觀光客一定能品嚐到傳統烤肉，傳統汽油燒蛤蠣，豐盛的傳統朝鮮泡菜，套餐
[[英籍領隊]]
“這是妳第一次，來第二十二次， 因為妳，我為旅行社工作，妳在這裡工作多久，兩年了，我為旅行社工作，名為高麗旅行社，在北京，有歐洲觀光客來平壤，妳負責導覽嗎，我們不做導遊，很明顯的，他們在有當地導遊，在平壤，我們是幫忙整合歐洲，和其他西方旅客來這個國家”
[[瑞士觀光客]]
“我到過南韓兩次，今年到北朝鮮算第三次，很值得親自來看看，因為都是我們西方媒體，提供的照片，圖像，我們卻沒有自己觀點，我想很值得自己來看看”
北朝鮮愈封閉愈引人好奇，美，日，南韓對它愈制裁，也愈有人想前往觀光，絕世的社會制度，純淨的自然風光，是北朝鮮的利器，對朝鮮政府而言，招攬觀光，不僅是國家外匯的重要來源，更是一點一滴的，文化和政治宣傳
文章出處 ：民視英語新聞
留言列表
