The Last Places on Earth  

Pictures from tour to North Korea in fall of 2010. It was the time of the Mass Games and National Day Holiday, so there was a lot of activity. Part of our tour included a short trip to the north of the country. Our first stop in the north was the Mt Peakdu area, an important setting in the official mythology underpinning the personality cult of Kim il Sung and Kim Jong il. We then went onto the Mt Chilbo area and visited the city of Chongjin, infamous as one of the worst hit areas in the mass starvations of the late 1990s that plagued the country. We returned to Pyongyang in time for the celebrations of the National Day holiday on September 9, which is the day that North Korea officially declared itself a republic in 1948. Read the story on North Korea Tour: A Chilling Glimpse into the Hermit Kingdom