Visas are not normally granted to foreign independent
travellers to North Korea, only to visitors on an organised
tour with a guide. Several companies can arrange
visits to North Korea. Try Regent Holidays (in the UK)
at
www.regent-holidays.co.uk who can arrange group or
individual tours to North Korea, including booking the
Beijing-Pyongyang and Moscow-Pyongyang trains. Also
try
www.juchetravelservices.com (a new London based agency), Koryo Tours (Beijing-based) at
www.koryogroup.com, VNC Travel at www.vnc.nl(in the
Netherlands),
www.northkorea1on1.com (based in the USA). Each of these companies can book the Beijing-Pyongyang sleeper train
and help with visas. You may also find this webpage
useful:
www.tripbase.com/c/northkorea/. Although talks are progressing, there are no
trains (nor any access) across the border between North and
South Korea.
Moscow - North Korea...
There is a direct sleeping-car between Moscow and Pyongyang
in North Korea twice a month provided by the North Korean
Railways, and in addition there are two direct Russian
sleeping-cars 4 times a month from Moscow to the North
Korean border at Tumangan, with an onward connection to
Pyongyang.
These sleeping-cars are attached to train 2, the 'Rossiya'
from Moscow as far as Ussuriysk, just short of Vladivostok,
where they are detached and run onwards along the branch
line to Tumangan. The twice-monthly North Korean
sleeping-car is direct to Pyongyang, but the four times
monthly Russian sleepers require a change of train at Tumangan
onto two North Korean sleeping-cars for the final night's
journey to
Pyongyang. All these sleeping-cars have kupé 4-berth
compartments and spalny vagon 2-berth compartments.
IMPORTANT: The Moscow-Tumangan-Pyongyang route has not so far been
approved for foreigners to enter North Korea. It
may be approved at some point, but please check with your
chosen travel agency, feedback would be
appreciated. The only approved route for westerners
would be to take one of the two weekly Moscow-Beijing trains
(see the Trans-Siberian page),
then take the Beijing to Pyongyang train as shown in the
next section.
Moscow
& Irkutsk
▶ Pyongyang
Pyongyang
▶
Irkutsk & Moscow
Days of running:
1st, 5th, 15th &
21st of each month
11th & 25th
of each month
Days of running:
7th, 11th, 21st
27th of each month*
2nd or 3rd & 17th
of each month
Moscow (Yaroslavski)
depart
23:45
day 1
23:45
day 1
Pyongyang
depart
08:00
day 1
08:00
day 1
Irkutsk depart
02:55
day 5
02:55
day 5
Tumangan arrive
??:?? day 2
??:?? day 2
Tumangan arrive
10:19
day 8
10:19
day 8
change trains
through car
change trains
through car
Tumangan depart
14:20
day 2
14
20 day 2
Tumangan depart
17:05
day 8
17:05
day 8
Irkutsk arrive
13:12
day 5
13:12
day 5
Pyongyang
arrive
20:45
day 9
20:45
day 9
Moscow (Yaroslavski)
arrive
17:43
day 8
17:43
day 8
* These are the dates you'd leave Pyongyang.
The departure dates for the Tumangan-Moscow sleepers
will obviously be one day later.
Tumangan is the North Korean border point.
This is the 'new' service introduced in 2011. You
can check some if not all of these times at
www.poezda.net, but remember that Pyongyang is spelt
'Pjoengjang' and you'll need to look up each train
separately. Westbound train times seem to be
absent from the system. Also try the RZD (Russian
Railways) website
http://pass.rzd.ru/isvp/public/pass?STRUCTURE_ID=5144.
Fares: Moscow to Pyongyang through ticket:
Bought through Real Russia, £524 in kupé (4-berth, 2nd class) or £817 in spalny vagon
(2-berth, 1st class). According to the Russian
Railways website, the official fare is 410 Swiss Francs
(about £285) in 2nd class 4-berth, 645 Swiss Francs (about
£460) in 1st class 2-berth.
Visas: You'll need to have your travel arranged
through an agency that handles travel to North Korea, as
only passengers on tour arrangements can get visas.
You'll need a Russian visa, obviously. However, the
train passes directly from Russia into North Korea, it does
not pass through China, so no need for a Chinese visa.
However, this route is currently not approved for
foreigners to enter North Korea. Though at least
one intrepid traveller has managed to reach North Korea this
way, see Helmut Uttenthaler's account as
http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com.
Beijing - North Korea...
Beijing
▶ Pyongyang
Pyongyang
▶ Beijing
Beijing
depart
17:25 Mon, Wed, Thur, Sat
Pyongyang
depart
10:10 Mon, Wed, Thur, Sat
Pyongyang
arrive
19:30 next day
Beijing
arrive
08:23 next day
The train has soft
class 4-berth sleepers & restaurant car. A
restaurant meal costs around 5 euros. This train is
approved for European & other non-US foreigners but it's
reported as not permitted for US citizens, if you're
American please check.
Pyongyang station. Photo courtesy
of Roger Kidley
Traveller's report...
Traveller David Eerdmans visited North Korea using the
Beijing-Pyongyang train:
"...Using the train is very recommendable, because it gives
a unique insight in the poor rural areas of North-Korea that
are not otherwise shown to tourists (although the villages
along the railway are probably still among the best there
are in the country). You also pass the site of the large
train explosion two years ago, which is still very visible.
The train usually consists of two through cars attached to
respectively a Chinese and Korean train on both sides of the
border (and on some days also a part from Moscow). The train
is pretty comfortable and very comparable to the usual
trains in China and Russia, although it's state was somewhat
less. Track quality is horrible in North-Korea, with the
train travelling very slowly. Stations are in a very
poor state of repair (and of course always spot a portrait
of the Great or the Dear Leaders...sigh...). Delays are very
frequent due to power outages. There are, as you
state, indeed two classes [subsequent report says only one,
4-berth]. Both are pretty similar and
consist of 4-person compartments. From Pyongyang,
western tourists are only allowed on the Soft Sleeper, which
is only used by foreigners, mostly Chinese [subsequent
reports suggest there is no segregation]. From Beijing,
you can also use the Hard Sleeper, which is also used by
North-Koreans ...which creates about the only opportunity to
speak with 'normal' North-Koreans without having a guide
with you. On the way back from Pyongyang I also had an
interesting conversation, because I shared the compartment
with the Indian ambassador in North-Korea! The
through cars are fenced off from the rest of the train (!),
so you can't use the restaurant car [although several other reports
confirm that you can do so!]. In Korea,
however, a meal can be brought to you by the car attendant
[Note: Regent Holidays report that meals in the
restaurant car are included in the fare]. The quality
of the food is pretty good considering the food shortages in
the country. Do expect dog meat however, which is
actually quite tasty. The border crossing is very
slow, but not the pain I expected it to be. The border
officials are usually not too friendly, but not rude or
intimidating.
North Korea - South Korea trains...
Although there have been talks, proposals an test runs,
there is currently no service between North & South Korea,
and the border remains closed.
Travel insurance...
Get travel insurance, it's essential...
Never travel overseas without travel insurance from a reliable
insurer, with at least £1m or preferably £5m medical cover. It should also cover
cancellation and loss of cash (up to a limit) and belongings.
An annual
multi-trip policy is usually cheaper than several single-trip
policies even for just 2 or 3 trips
a year (I have an annual policy myself). Here are some suggested insurers.
Seat61 gets a small commission if you buy through these
links.
If you live in the UK, get quotes from
Columbus Direct or
Go Travel Insurance, or go to
Confused.com to run a price comparison on a whole range of
travel insurance providers for your dates of travel, seeing
their policy's features at a glance..
Get a spare credit card, designed for foreign travel with no currency
exchange loading & low or no ATM fees...
It costs nothing to take out an extra credit card.
If you keep it in a different part of your luggage so you're
not left stranded if
your wallet gets stolen, this is a form of extra travel insurance in itself. In addition,
some credit cards are significantly better for
overseas travel than others. Martin Lewis's
www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money explains which
UK credit cards
have the lowest currency exchange commission loadings when you buy something
overseas, and the lowest cash withdrawal fees when
you use an ATM abroad. Taking this advice
can save you quite a lot on each trip compared to using your
normal high-street bank credit card! You can save money on ATM charges and exchange rates using a
Caxton FX euro currency Visa Card, or indeed the
multi-currency 'Global Traveller' Visa Card,
find out about these cards & sign up here.
Get an international SIM card...
Mobile phones can cost a fortune to use abroad, and if you're
not careful you can return home to find some huge bills
waiting for you. I've known people run up a £1,000 bill
in data charges just by leaving their iPhone connected during a
simple trip to Europe. However, if you
buy a global SIM card for your mobile phone from a company
such as
www.Go-Sim.com you can slash the cost by up to 85% and
limit any damage to the amount you have pre-paid. It
cuts call costs in 175 countries worldwide,
and you can receive incoming calls and texts for free in 75 countries. It's pay-as-you-go, so no nasty bills
when you get home. It also works for laptop or PDA data
access. A Go-Sim account and any credit on it doesn't
expire if it's not between trips, unlike some
others, so a Go-Sim phone number becomes your 'global phone
number' for life.
If you live in the UK, get quotes from
If
you're resident in
Australia, New Zealand, Ireland or the EU, try
If you're resident in the USA or Canada, try
