Thousands of North Koreans have fled to China to escape hunger and oppression, sharpened since the collapse of the communist economies that once propped up the regime. It is nudged across the final leg into China by an ancient steam locomotive. But the tediously slow journey does allow a view of the obvious hardship in what is considered one of the richest parts of the North Korean countryside. The first snows of winter blanket the north of the peninsula. Oxcarts are the main form of transport.
Most people get about on foot.
Beyond, to the north-east, the struggle against economic collapse and famine deepens. But even on the coast the poverty of ordinary Koreans is painfully apparent. The soldiers who guard the stations and even the bridges are a small reminder of how the system is sustained. But this was not the North Korea seen by Alexander Downer during his brief visit this week to Kim Jong-il's promised land. Without acknowledging the failure of its juche , or self-reliance, ideology, North Korea's leadership is searching for aid and trade to help stave off further famine and replace the succour once given by the Soviet Union.