North Korea: Yesterday's glories... and today's Dear Leader

Revered North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Photo / Reuters

North Korea shows its idols, past and present.

A milk-white marble statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy, shining luminescent in the gloom of a volcanic cave, isn't what you expect to be shown as a tourist attraction in the Stalinist state of North Korea.

But here I am, with dozens of other tourists and a scattering of uniformed soldiers from the North Korean Army, enjoying the serene beauty of the statue, sipping water from the sacred spring which flows from the cave and admiring the classic design of the nearby small Buddhist temple.

And hundreds more visitors from South Korea, accompanied by the North Korean minders, are making their way up the steep stone pathway to savour this religious spectacle.

There is even a monk in the temple, welcoming visitors, joining them in prayers and explaining - in Korean - the statue's history. It seems there were originally two statues of the goddess, but one is now in the Jung'ang Historical Museum in the capital, Pyongyang.

Doubt remains whether the man in the temple really was a monk. A Korean-speaking Swiss tourist told me, after chatting to a few South Korean tourists, that they thought the monk was little more than a tourist prop. Our South Korean guide thought he was a monk but allowed to practise religion only with visitors, not locals.

Whatever the truth, there's no doubting that it is North Korea's feudal past - Buddhist temples, Confucian shrines, royal tombs and beauty spots carved with religious texts - rather than its Marxist-Leninist present that visitors are taken to see.

The first stopping point on our day trip across the border is Bak'yeon waterfall, said to be one of the three most beautiful waterfalls in Korea - a thin ribbon of water arching 37m down a rock face, carved with ancient Buddhist texts, into a pool below. From there a long, steep path leads past a famous pavilion from where royalty once viewed the falls.

Next stop was lunch - the 13-dish royal table - at an old inn which the regime has developed in a delightful traditional housing complex, built on both sides of a pretty stream, dating back to the Joseon dynasty (which ruled Korea from 1392 to 1910).

Then our tour visited two sites honouring the memory of a famous Confucian scholar, Jeong Mongju, who was killed in 1392 for refusing to transfer his allegiance to a new king but later acknowledged for his loyalty. We were able to see the stone bridge, built in 919, on which he was slain. Then a young woman in traditional dress showed us around a Confucian shrine to him, built 200 years later.

The final stop on our trip was the Goryeo Museum, filled with relics of Korea's royal past, established in what was once a Confucian university.

But the emphasis on yesteryear does not mean the North Koreans have entirely forsaken the propaganda opportunities provided by these visiting outsiders.

At the entrance to the Bak-yeon park, for instance, was a huge stone tablet which, according to our guide, extolled the virtues of the regime established by Kim Il Sung and continued by his son Kim Jong Il. Amid the religious texts carved into the rockface of the waterfall and the rocks alongside the path to the goddess' cave were several newer inscriptions, mostly painted red, praising the two Kims. It is "a taboo in North Korea to point at, lean on or damage these monuments or rock inscriptions" and tourists can be fined for violations.

Those interested in the Great Leader and the Dear Leader get their chance in the tourist attraction's souvenir shops. These are filled with flags, badges and books celebrating the great men. The South Koreans who travelled with us ignored these delights in favour of stocking up on the ginseng for which the Gaesong region is famous.

I was more interested in a bottle of cold locally brewed lager for only US$1. It was excellent and the perfect antidote for the spring heat.