This is yet another day of rain. Our planned hiking course has to be abandoned. Floods a few days previously have washed out a lot of bridges and roads. (The news of this emerges into the western media somewhat later on August 14 - e.g. BBC News.) Instead we do a shorter course in the morning, walking up a mountain valley anxiously crossing rather dodgy looking bridges over a torrential stream. The track is also a watercourse and it's impossible to keep our feet dry. If the weather had been better we could have reached Guryong Waterfall - one of the most impressive waterfalls and a tourist "must-see" but we had to be content with the mountain torrent and other waterfalls.
One of the features of North Korea is the adulation accorded the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung and his son and successor, the Dear Leader, Comrade Kim Jong-Il. As we walked through the forest we passed a number of plaques recording the teachings of Kim Il-sung. There is a prolific industry in creating these plaques and in calligraphic carving into stone.
This was the first occasion we had to mix with our North Korean tour guides. One came and asked me in English if I spoke any of the North Korean language. Only a little of the South language I replied. (The language of South and North is the same but 50 years of separation and of ideological differences have created substantial variation). He asked me where I was from, I told him New Zealand and he replied that he was from Gangwon Province, North Korea. I also live in Gangwon Province I told him - the part of the Province in the South. (Our province is divided by the DMZ). It was a strange point of connection.
We then saw the re-construction site of the Shingyesa Temple. The original temple here, dating from 519 was destroyed in the Korean War, but is now being rebuilt with South Korean finance. Geumgansan is important in Korean Buddhist history and has many Buddhist sites, some still extant.
After walking round the temple construction site, our shoes, which had been wet but clean are now muddy as well.
We continue to Samilpo - a seaside lake - with a rather tatty concrete pavillion. The rock faces around are again inscribed, "Long Life to the Great Leader". The interesting thing about the travel is getting from one place to another by bus. We are not allowed to take photos along the way because we have to pass outside our special tourist-only areas and (almost) mix with the locals. Well - at least we can look from the bus and see the ubiquitous soldiers with their red flags ready to stop anything untoward. We also see propaganda billboards, villages and schools. Buildings are universally dull concrete with fading paint. Schools have small holes for windows but no glass. The local farmers ignore us completely.
Later that afternoon we see the harbour where South Korean tourism to the North began. The bus ride over the DMZ was not available then so everyone had to come in and out by ship and stay in a "floating hotel" moored in the harbour.
We finish in a luxuriously appointed spa enjoying a variety of indoor and outdoor hot and cold pools, a walk through a jade pebble pool and different saunas. After spending the day getting wetter and dirtier it was a relief to enjoy getting wet and clean.
And the farmers in the villages we saw perhaps had to draw water by buckets from the river and had only the dimmest of lights at night.
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