The countries you have visited are war zones. People were blown up just this morning in Afghanistan.
Granted you may have gone to safer parts, but the countries you visited were indeed at war
Holiday in Iraq + Taksim Square
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The countries you have visited are war zones. People were blown up just this morning in Afghanistan.
Granted you may have gone to safer parts, but the countries you visited were indeed at war
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Again you've assumed I do this to boast about it. I went to North Korea because I'm interested in the political situation that had led to it's current state, and since it's one of the few remaining examples of soviet style communism (something that I have an interest in the history of) I thought it'd be interesting to see it before it no longer exists.
Regarding the money the profit margin that went to NK government from my tour is in the region of £70. If you want to talk about where NK gets it's money from lets talk about driving down global prices of Anthracite to weaken their exports.
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Looking forward to this.
Is all this travel just done for fun?
I think fun might be the wrong word! But yeah just an interest in the politics in the relevant regions.
Also the Iraq trip was with a friend who runs tours to these types of places, this was a research trip for a tour to Iraq he wants to set up.
If you truly did go for those reasons then I see nothing wrong in it and I apologize for jumping the gun.
I just can't stand the people (and there seem to be quite a lot of them) who visit these countries for "fun." It just shows a severe lack of compassion and is completely distasteful in my view
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No worries.
I do agree about people who go just for a laugh but I think there can still be some benefit to it. For example in NK it's expected you tip the tour guides, they make a salary of about 50EUR a month but receive about 500-1000EUR in tips, they usually don't declare this and use the money to support friends and family. Also I feel that any engagement with outsiders, no matter how limited, helps to gradually change the North Koreans perception of foreigners.
My friend who runs a tour company to NK, and has now been there about 8 times over the last 5 years, says that the guides he uses have gradually been appearing to have better living conditions (better clothes, look healthier) and have opened up a lot more to foreigners, even detailing what smuggled in DVD's and music are currently popular in NK (Titanic and Michael Jackson if you're wondering).
Even though the guides are part of the elite 5% of the population (The two guides I met are both children of ambassadors to foreign countries) I do genuinely feel this engagement will slowly improve things, at least for some people there.
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To be fair to this man - rock on.
It's such a very few elite though. I doubt it's even 5%... You have about 25 million people "living" in NK, surely 1.2 million of them aren't tour guides... More likely it's around 0.1-0.2%, which is nothing. And like you said most of those are already connected in some way to the corrupt political party and sprouting their nonsense.
Then when you look at the other countries like Somalia where you've had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people dieing in the most horrible ways possible (and who still are) and it really makes you wonder what's in the heads of people that go to these places for fun. I mean are they going to a place based on how many people have been killed or what? Makes no sense to me
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Take me with you 
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Depends on how you define elite but the population of Pyongyang is about 10-15% of the population and the standard of living there is fairly decent, better than some places I've seen in South East Asia.
There will always be people who like to do things to the extreme and there will always be others who think they're fools. Ultimately if they aren't hurting anyone and they don't have dependents I say leave them to it.
On that note I've always though the guys with kids who compete in the Isle of Man TT are worthy of some criticism, much more that someone who chooses to holiday somewhere risky.
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oh hell no.
I. for one, always enjoy reading about James' travels. In fact I found his blog on North Korea to be more informative and interesting than various pieces by journalists that I've read. I'm sure the entries about Iraq will be no less interesting.
Wish I had the drive to travel to similar places.
Wish I had the drive to travel to similar places.
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Yup Iraqi Kurdistan was fine, Turkish Kurdistan on other was pretty rough.
Did you to Dublin for your Visa or get it somewhere else? Waiting on my Auth. code at the minute.
Personally I want to visit NK because im interested in the language specifically and the culture. Id love to go there.
I have no idea how to make a documentary.
I can understand NK completely, but why Iraq?
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Friend was going as a research trip to setup tours asked if I wanted to go along. Seemed like it would be a challenge to arrange logistically and I enjoy the problem solving part of a trip us much as the trip itself. Also thought it would be interesting to see what state the Kurdistan part of the country was in with it's new found autonomy, it is developing rapidly after it started selling its own oil. There's also quite a few cool things to see (red Security Building, Various old forts, fun-fairs) plus the scenery was absolutely incredible, beautiful driving through massive canyons.