Featured Image Credit: Small Brained American / YouTube
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea remains one of the most mysterious and inaccessible nations on Earth.
It's a place so isolated and tightly controlled that most people will never see it in person.
But there's a peculiar way to glimpse North Korea without actually entering - and one content creator discovered it's become a thriving tourist attraction.
YouTuber Small Brained American (aka Conner McBee) travelled to see what it's really like to get close to North Korea. His journey started in Dalian, Southeast China, where he immediately felt the weight of restrictions.
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"Immigration is very thorough. They went through every page of my passport, asked me [for] my phone number, the hotel I'm staying at, how long in each city I'm staying in," he explained.
Upon reaching Dandong, China, he noticed something unusual. He arrived at the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge (previously called the Yalu/Amnok River Bridge), which connects Dandong with North Korea's Sinuiju by railway and roadway. However, pedestrians cannot cross between the two sides.
The bridge suffered heavy damage from US military aircraft bombing throughout the Korean War. Today, it symbolises China and North Korea's trade and diplomatic relationship and serves as one of the few entry or exit points for North Korea.
McBee noticed that the bridge also primarily focuses as a popular tourist attraction, something he recognised as a 'human safari.'
"It's crazy how it's like a tourist attraction in China to go look at their neighbours to the north east," he admitted. "It's a big tourist attraction too and one you've probably never heard of."
Shocked by how close North Korea actually was, the YouTuber walked along the bridge pointing his camera towards the county, saying: "It's just right there guys. It's just right there."
McBee said he couldn't imagine a 'parallel situation in the US' where tourists would flock to view a 'country that's hard to get into' and 'impossible to leave.'
The traveller then got as close to the barrier as possible, zoomed his camera in to see what he could observe in the neighbouring country and the results were unsettling.
From his view, McBee spotted a hotel under reconstruction, which looked to be an abandoned water slide and a derelict Ferris wheel. Comparing both coastlines, the YouTuber noticed towering skyscrapers along China's side and more barren, abandoned landscape on North Korea's side.
By evening, stalls selling food and souvenirs had been set up for tourists.
"It's just so weird the atmosphere here compared to what must be happening over there and the whole appeal is to watch what's happening over there," McBee said. Towards the end of the video, he took a boat ride on North Korean waters to get a 'worryingly' closer view.
"This place seems oddly bizarre and barren and highly secure and extremely poor," he described, adding that the few mega buildings he could spot were either in 'severe disrepair' or 'never finished being built.'
The video received over 2 million views and is a rare sight into a country with so much history and a place many of us will never get to see.
What Small Brained American captured isn't just a glimpse of North Korea itself, but rather the strange reality of standing mere metres away from one of the world's most closed societies.
