You’re drunk you’re drunk you silly old fool

To enter North Korea you must join a tour group – no other option. You will then be guided by two experienced North Korean guides. You will also be accompanied by a representative of whatever tour company you booked with. The person who travelled with us from the tour company turned out to be just as bizarre and baffling as the country we were visiting. He was a 24 year old from New Zeeland and managed to provide as much entertainment, stress and concern as anything we saw in Korea. Instead of repeating the whole story I will instead post the letter I wrote to the company after the ordeal.

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Dear All,
I hardly know how to begin writing this e mail concerning T*** C******’s distressing behaviour on the recent group tour in Korea. A few days have passed and even still I am shocked and appalled by the events.

As you probably know it began as it continued, with T*** drinking. The first sign that we were dealing with a problem case presented itself at the very beginning when T*** managed to have us all miss the (thrice weekly) train to North Korea as he stood in the station hall chatting and drinking beer after beer. Amazingly he had asked us to be there three and a half hours early, which we all were. As the time for the departure time got closer I asked him what we were waiting for and why we were not going to a platform. He seemed to think that 1) there’d be a special announcement and 2) that he’d understand it even though he admitted previously that his Chinese is particularly poor. There were no announcements the entire time we waited and he never asked a single person for assistance. We could only assume T*** knew what he was doing, he was the tour leader after all. Sadly we quickly found out that he never knows what he is doing. T*** does not have the maturity or responsibility to lead an adult group. I would suggest he’d struggle leading children around Disneyland let alone a group of
curious adults around a country as intricate and sensitive as DPR Korea. It is worth mentioning that at no point did T*** offer an apology for causing us to miss the train.

We then had to rely on his Chinese wife organising airplane tickets to another Chinese city where we hoped we could then catch the train we had unnecessarily missed. Thankfully his wife managed what T*** couldn’t and we boarded the train at 3am (instead of 6pm as planned).

Only hours after meeting T***, fueled by beer, regaled us with story after story of how drunk he gets on different occasions. This was interspersed with comments like ‘I would love to plough that Korean chick – and come to think of it I would nail her mother as well’.

T*** clearly has no concept of the customer client relationship. We all felt extremely uncomfortable with these comments and the constant bragging of his alcohol binges. We heard far, far more from T*** C******* about his relationship with alcohol than we did about DPR Korea. In fact I learnt more in one hour from Simon, a guide with Koryo Tours than I did the entire unfortunate time spent with T***.

I could write many examples of T***’s immaturity and excessive drinking but I will keep it to one rather obvious one where, after lunch he drank six glasses of rice wine in the space of one minute.

Skipping right to the end, how T*** acted on the last day was the single most astonishing behaviour I have ever witnessed. At 2pm he swaggered into our train cabin having already drunk countless beers and a half bottle of vodka. He made no sense whatsoever but attempted conversation nonetheless. Suggestions that he go and find some coffee were not even understood as he battled to form even one coherent sentence. He quickly passed out and we let him sleep until we neared the border. Our attempts to wake him up included slapping him and pouring water on his face – neither having any effect. Eventually we managed to rouse him somewhat by lifting him.

When the border officials arrived our embarrassment grew and grew. T*** spoke utter nonsense at them, for example insisting he had given them his passport when he clearly had not done any such thing. He was, at this point already, the drunkest I have ever seen any human being in my life. Bearing in mind he was working at the time and passing through a high security border and responsible for a group of five this is completely unacceptable and beyond upsetting and shocking.

Being in no condition to fill in the exit and entry forms the other gentlemen on our tour attempted it for him. Their reward for this kindness was a drunken roar of  ‘f****ing French c***s’ being yelled at them. Astonishingly after this T*** continued to drink even more and we then decided that he was on his own. We managed to sort out our train tickets and passed through the border with no help from him whatsoever.

The DPR Korea is a fascinating country but all on our group agree that our experience was hugely tainted by our guide T***. Instead of having a guide organise things for us we ended up taking care of him. Having paid quite a lot of money for this tour this is completely unacceptable.

T*** is clearly an alcoholic and in no condition to be in charge of a group. I would venture to say that he is unable to manage his own activities let alone those of others.

I am certain I speak for all five when I say that the experience with Young Pioneers last week was a disaster and a most unpleasant experience.

This has been the single most disappointing and upsetting experience I have ever had with any company.

yours,