
36 hours in North Korea without a guide - mike_esspe
http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/
======
solipsist
In the comment section of the travelogue, one of the authors of this post
wrote the following in response to another's remark saying that what they had
done was very risky:

    
    
      First of all, I know that our trip was a risky experiment and in some way egoistic.
      However, if you have a difficult aim, you just must not think so much about the
      risks involved and about failing. A mountain climber also must not think about what
      might happen if he makes a wrong step and falls down. He has to concentrate his
      thoughts on how he can achieve his aim, otherwise he has already lost before
      starting. Adventures don't happen if you're too afraid.
    

I think this summarizes what type of person the author is pretty well.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Mountain climbers think _a lot_ about what would happen if they took a wrong
step or fell down. They spend a lot of time training for it, they spend a lot
of money on equipment in preparation for it, and they spend a lot of effort
setting up backup systems. When a mountain climber goes out on a glacier they
typically do not go alone, with minimal equipment. They go in a team, each
person wearing a harness and roped together. They each have an ice ax and have
trained in self-arrest on snow and ice. If one person were to fall they have
been trained to arrest themselves and save the faller by means of the rope.
They may have practiced this many times. If one climber were to fall into a
crevasse they will arrest, set up anchors, and set up a rescue system (using
pulleys and extra gear that they have brought). Meanwhile, if the climber in
the crevasse is still conscious he or she will attempt to do what they can to
aid in their own rescue (up to and including ascending the rope). And this is
just a small part of the training and preparation that experienced
mountaineers take on when they set out to climb a mountain.

It does nevertheless take a good deal of courage and determination to work
your way up a glaciated mountain, but the idea that there is no safety net or
that the climbers do not think what will happen if things go bad is very
misleading. It is perhaps the single most pressing topic of thought for any
mountaineer.

~~~
wrl
Of course climbers think about and prepare for falling and other dangerous
scenarios. In the "heat of the moment," though, too much mind paid to the
negative can certainly outweigh concentration on the positive.

In the same way that nauseating conversation can disrupt a meal, I've had a
few of my attempts at technical bouldering problems disrupted by friends
conversing nearby about climbing injuries. In one case, hearing talk about
dislocated shoulders and elbow injuries while I was working on a problem
involving odd shoulder and elbow orientation made progress very difficult.

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garply
I'm struck by the enormous amount of agriculture. It's easy to forget how, not
so long ago, the average human spent most of his time trying to generate food.

~~~
ugh
The amount of agriculture seemed least surprising to me, those were actually
the photos that looked most familiar. Agriculture is everywhere whenever I
look out of the window of a train in Germany and fields with crops look the
same no matter where you are on the planet.

It’s unlikely that you actually know anyone or are related to anyone working
in agriculture in Germany (only two percent of the labor force are working in
agriculture compared to 36 percent in North Korea) but I don’t think that the
area used by agriculture has gone down in Germany. We still need all that
food, it’s just that we have become super-efficent when it comes to farming
it. Very few people can today farm huge swaths of land when they have the
right infrastructure.

~~~
Someone
I did not see much special about those fields, either, but crop yield has gone
up dramatically due to the use of (artificial) fertilizers, plant breeding,
and genetic modification. Most of those may not be available to North Korea,
for example because they cannot afford to buy or do not have the oil to
produce artificial fertilizers.

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js2
I posted this link in a comment:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2153398>

Nice to see it show up on the front page.

~~~
solipsist
Yeah, I think a lot of people clicked on the link when you posted that
comment. It's definitely something everyone should take a few minutes to look
at.

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iwjames
Absolutely amazing. It does sound like it would be very difficult to travel in
N. Korea if you don't speak Russian, Korean, or surprisingly, German.

But, the French speaker was especially surprising, and I would have expected
more Chinese influence than there seemed to be (linguistically).

~~~
pmorici
I forget where I read it but I'm pretty sure as part of their education they
have to learn a foreign language. I think they mentioned something about this
on vbs.tv they had a special called Vice Guide to North Korea
[http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-
guide-...](http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-
north-korea-1-of-3) Where they traveled around and filmed for a few days.

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jacquesm
That's a hell of a trip, everybody should do something like that at least once
in their lives if their situation permits it.

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js2
One more from my N Korea bookmarks:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158524>

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FameofLight
Its Awesome

