On track in the surreal world of Comrade Kim

A train journey through the extraordinarily secretive state of North Korea offers Monisha Rajesh fresh perspectives – and an unexpected chance to dance

It was cold in my compartment and the air held the sour dankness of the guards’ cheap cigarettes. Lifting a corner of the curtain, I squinted outside. A white beam lit up the wall above my head and I gathered the faux-fur covers around my shoulders and edged towards the window. Lifting a corner of the curtain, I squinted outside. Disorientated, I touched my forehead to the glass and then I saw them, smiling. Above the clocks found on the front and back of each of the country’s railway stations, hung the illuminated, framed faces of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, a paternal picture of jollity. It was three o’clock in the morning. Then I remembered where I was: on a train in North Korea, travelling from Chongjin to the port city of Wonsan.

Crawling back into bed I took out my iPhone and began to watch a video I had filmed that morning at the Steelworks Kindergarten in Chongjin. More than 25 children aged from three to seven years old had put on a performance for our tour group so precisely styled and executed it would have put the Bolshoi Ballet to shame.

The train eased away from the station as I flicked through photographs of their playground which had featured a slide, a rocket, a tank, and a submarine with a torpedo on the side. Unable to sleep, I made some notes by the light of my phone, then panicked and tried to scratch them out in case anyone chose to read them. Realising I was being ridiculous, I gave up as the train began to sway in the darkness, and dozed off.

When I began my travels around the world for my book Around the World in 80 Trains, I wrestled with the concept of visiting North Korea. Like the majority of travellers, I was unaware that the country has been open to tourists since 1953, although until 1988 it was restricted to visitors from “friendly” and non-aligned countries. Currently more than 5,000 Western tourists visit North Korea each year, with sanctions and sporadic nuclear testing doing little to dissuade them.

Only in mid-March an American student was detained in Pyongyang and sentenced to 15 years hard labour which did not deter the 1,000 foreign tourists who took part in the

Essential reading: Monisha Rajesh takes in the words of North Korea’s leaders