A man has lifted the lid on the shocking reality of North Korea after he became one of the first tourists to visit after five years of isolation.
Life in North Korea has been described by people who have escaped the regime, but the extent of the harsh realities for the people still living there is often unknown.
But recently, the secretive country opened its borders to non-Russian tourists for the first time in half a decade.
And one man documented his experience for his YouTube channel visiting a country that is kept so under wraps that ‘when I was flying in, we had to close the blinds on the windows of the plane because we weren’t allowed to look outside’.
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Mike Okay shared his visit to North Korea with his 607,000 subscribers where he spent five days with a tour group.
Mike said: “We had five North Koreans with us, three guides, a driver and a photographer. They were very friendly, always polite and they did their absolute best to make sure that we felt at ease but no matter how welcoming they seemed, there was no shaking this feeling that we were being watched.”
The YouTuber shared a bizarre encounter during a trip to a mineral water factory where Mike noticed there weren’t any workers.
Asking his tour guide about it, the man replied: “What’s the day today, Saturday?”
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To which Mike responded: “Thursday.”
At his hotel, the YouTuber showed how his windows had been ‘sealed shut’ and the room’s phone could not connect to anyone ‘outside of North Korea’.
At the end of his trip, Mike visited a school where he watched a group perform a song celebrating their leader, Kim Jong Un.
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Many viewers took to the YouTube comment section to share their reactions to the footage.
One user wrote: “This whole episode felt like a Truman Show movie. Like everything around him is set up just for him.”
Another said: “I kinda feel bad for the people that are getting interviewed, one wrong answer and it’s over for them and their whole family. Imagine the amount of pressure.”
A third person commented: “The fact he didn’t know which day it was, said Saturday, and you fact checked him saying it’s Thursday shows something was up.”
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A fourth wrote: “It still blows my mind that a place like this actually exists…”
And a fifth person added: “Everybody seems so programmed and gets nervous when asked about any other counties. I feel for the kids—smart, talented and articulate. I genuinely hope the best for them.”