Naked in North Korea

by Anna Harakopoulos (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Korea North

Tuesday 8th July 2008……I was 19 years old. The journey to Mount Kumgang was spectacular. The sun began to set on the jagged boulder-like mountains - it was like being surrounded by painting after painting after painting. Solitary armed guards stood eerily in the fields every few miles looking like statues in the tall grass. How long had they been there? Do they ever go home? The sun had gone down and it was time for our chosen evening activities - I chose the trip to the hot spring spa which seemed popular with the locals. Standing in front of the dressing room mirror in my hotel room I wondered if I was dressed appropriately. Was my bikini too skimpy? After checking out the giant mural statue of Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung just beyond the car park, I realised I wasn’t entirely sure if I was in the correct place. I was surrounded by old ladies chatting away at each other in Korean. I tried to ask them if they were going to the spa too but no one understood me. I then pointed to my towel and started tugging at my bikini strap in hopes they’d have a better idea of what I meant. Instead they just started scowling at me and gestured at me like I was some kind of idiot. A bus turned up and I just got on it with the rest of the group. Luckily it took me to where I wanted to go. The first room at the spa was small and filled with really compact lockers for your shoes only. After taking my hiking boots off and managing to successfully shove them into a locker, it was onto the next room. This was a medium sized room with bigger lockers this time but roughly the same layout as the previous room. This is where you store your belongings. All the women around me started to nonchalantly strip down. I took my clothes off and kept my towel around my waist. I already had my bikini on to save time as most people do. I was waiting for the ladies around me to put their bathing suits on after disrobing. They didn’t. I looked up and cast my eyes through the doorway into the final room. This was the indoor part of the spa and it was huge. Full of different showers, plunge pools, mirrors, buckets and tools to wash yourself with. There must have been about 50 women in there - and they were all naked. Every single last one of them. I started pacing it up and down the locker room. What was I going to do? I started sweating. I didn’t even know where to look and kept having to divert my eyes to the floor. I’d never been in a situation like this in my life. I was the only person there who wasn’t South Korean. They started to look up at me one by one with intrigue. Some just gave me the discreet side-eye. Asking for a refund and sitting in the car park until it was time to go back to the resort did cross my mind. The women around me didn’t seem to have a care in the world. One lady, she must have been in her late 60s, stood at one of the showering stations really close to the doorway and scrubbed her back vigorously with a loofah brush like no one was watching - her breasts flying to and fro like windscreen wipers. A group of women further in sounded like they were in deep conversation about current affairs. I decided there was only one thing to do. I strolled in. Naked as the day I was born apart from the strap around my right ankle that held the locker keys and joined the 50-odd other naked ladies. I pulled aside the bulky clear PVC strip curtains separating the inside from the outside and headed straight for the hot springs. Gazing up at the night sky I let out a long drawn-out breath. How did I get here? I could see what felt like every single star in the universe. I couldn’t quite believe where I was.