Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Culler. It's Monday the 17th of February,

which means that we are three days away from a momentous event, which is the reopening of North Korea to tourist groups.

This has all happened very suddenly indeed. I first got wind of it yesterday. And to find out

more, I'm joined by Simon Cockerel of Corrio Tours, the company which has been going to North

Korea for many years and which is going to be launching tours that quickly. Simon, thank you

for joining me. Tell me how this has come about. Well, thanks for

having me on. So it's happened really quickly, just a week and a half ago or so, we were told,

send in some staff for final meetings. And we scrambled a bit and sent in one of my colleagues,

a chap called Greg, who then the border opens two tourists in just one area, in the Rasson area,

from the 20th of February. So we already have a group assembled to go in then,

and we'll be running regular trips after that, basically, from now.

Paint a picture of Razon. I'm just trying to get a sense of how big it is

and what it looks like and what the people are like.

It's mountainous, like all of the northern part of Korea, but it's on the coast as well.

So there are beaches and mountains, very remote on their tiny border with Russia and larger border

with China.

There are two cities in the area.

They're small cities called Radin and Sombong.

And it's from the

first syllable of those names that the zone gets its name, Rasson. So it's a portmanteau.

There are, you know, fishing villages, farming villages and so on. So it's quite basic, let's say.

But by North Korean basic standards, it's actually quite advanced. For most North Koreans,

...