An art museum in Kaesong, a North Korean border town
© AFP/File Jun Kwan-Woo

KAESONG, North Korea (AFP) - The Kaesong tour focuses on historic sites and beauty spots. But it also gives affluent Southerners a rare close-up view of the harsh realities of life in the impoverished communist North.

"Time seems to have stopped here," Lee In-Bin, 23, told AFP during a tour.

"After living apart for 60 years, the people of the South and the North, although the same Koreans, are too different. People here look so gloomy. There are few trees on the mountains and few cars on the streets."

Ordinary South Koreans got their first chance to visit the North a decade ago, when the Seoul-funded east coast resort of Mount Kumgang opened. Groups can visit the showpiece capital Pyongyang by invitation.

But Kaesong near the west coast is now the only destination open to average day-trippers. Seoul suspended tours to Kumgang this summer after North Korean soldiers shot dead a South Korean housewife who strayed into a restricted military zone.

And unlike Kumgang and Pyongyang, Kaesong's tourist spots are scattered in the downtown where ordinary people live.

Around 100,000 South Koreans have taken the tour to Kaesong, 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of Seoul, since it began in December 2007.

They see scenic waterfalls, historic Buddhist temples and other cultural relics in the city that was the capital of the Koryo Dynasty which ruled Korea between 918 and 1392.

They also see hillsides stripped bare of trees for firewood, streets almost empty of traffic and old brick buildings with faded or peeling paint. Some windows are covered with vinyl instead of glass.

South Korean trippers listen to a North Korean guide during a tour in Kaesong
© AFP/File Jun Kwan-Woo

Conspicuous amid the drabness are propaganda slogans and murals praising "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il and his family.

Uniformed and sometimes armed security personnel are posted at regular intervals, closely watching the convoy of tour buses.

The few pedestrians are mostly dressed in worn-out grey or navy blue Maoist-style outfits.

"It's like looking at South Korea back in the 1960s," said Yun Kum-Soon, 64, from the southwestern city of Gwangju.

Younger tourists said the streets resembled a movie from that era.

"The entire city looks like a film set," said Kim A-Hyeon, 23, lowering her voice because of North Korean guides on the bus.

"They (uniformed troops on the street) are like mannequins. Look at that! There goes an oxcart."

Capitalist South Korea is 18 times richer than the North in terms of gross national income. Children are almost 14 centimetres (5.6 inches) shorter in the North because of years of malnutrition, according to Seoul officials.

Yu Ki-Bang, 60, was four when he left his Kaesong home during the 1950-53 war.

"I have no actual memory of my home here because I was too young. But it's too bleak and desolate here," Yu said.

"I feel sad. I probably do not want to come back."

North Korean supervising guides (left) watch South Korean trippers (right) during their visit to Kaesong
© AFP/File Jun Kwan-Woo

Authorities strove to prevent any interaction between locals and the South Koreans. Police vehicles escorted the tour bus convoy and three North Korean guides were posted in each bus.

During stops for sightseeing, shopping or eating, guides took extraordinary care that no tourists stray.

Visitors cannot bring printed material, personal computers, mobile phones, radios, MP3 players or memory devices.

They can take pictures with digital -- not film -- cameras only at designated spots and not from the buses.

At a border checkpoint North Korean police scrutinise every picture taken by every tourist and erase those they think are inappropriate.

Hyundai Asan, the South Korean firm which operates all joint ventures in the North, urges tourists not to discuss sensitive topics.

Just outside the city but not on the tour is the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial estate, where some 32,000 North Koreans earn 60 dollars a month by working for South Korean labour-intensive factories.

The industrial estate and Mount Kumgang, both funded by Seoul to promote reconciliation, have earned the North tens of millions of dollars a year.

Despite this, the North recently threatened to evict South Koreans from the Kaesong estate in protest at cross-border leaflets spread by Seoul activists.

Tourist guide Ri Chun-Song said however he believes the industrial complex is a "win-win" business model for both Koreas.

"If the North and the South join hands, they will become a strong global power," said Ri, sporting a lapel pin of his country's founder Kim Il-Sung.

©AFP