Pyongyang isn't North Korea, it's like a different country. It's beautiful, manicured and 'rich'. It's a total political smokescreen, the cogs that keep the propaganda churning. I knew this before I arrived, and it's confirmed when your there - it's sterile, and simply not 'real' to true North Korea life for their majority.

Everything is real to a point. To those saying, 'why go, it's just a facade anyway!' don't realise. Yes, they show you their attractions, the ones they are very proud of. All of them. They try to give you a re-education in it - however, we travel between places via bus, North Korea doesn't exactly have the luxury in choosing between roads between locations other than in Pyongyang. You see daily life go by as normal, the farming, the villages, the people walking between them carrying water buckets over their heads akin to Africa and people cycling 50km in silk suit jackets with no shirts. You see the apartment blocks, the desolate lonely towns that have no infrastructure. It's all there.

Some things are facades. For example, the orphanage, or anything involving children. This is not an accurate representation of the countries orphanages, it has very healthy children that have been trained, indoctrinated to perform militaristic style dances for foreigners. I really hated this, and everything it represented.

We got taken into a 'local' house in the villages - it really wasnt that great. In fact, they had a car battery powering their radio next to their bed. This was the place they decided to show us. You can imagine what the rest are like.

Your role as a tourist is differentiating the propaganda from reality, it's not some big choreographed facade where you don't see real life at all.