A pharmacy as a tourist destination, organised flower-laying and a multi-checkpoint entry, all sound like unusual activities to do when visiting a new country. But for the first tourists heading into this was an easy sacrifice to be able to see the country for the first time since 2020.

Luca Pferdmenges, a 23-year-old content creator travelling the world, was fortunate enough to be one of the first tourists allowed back into the country. He spoke with the Mirror about the weirdest things that he experienced whilst there.

Whilst North Korea may have reopened to visitors, it is still not easy to access the country. For example, you cannot just hop on a flight. Instead, you have to fly to , where you will then cross the border via several buses.

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"You get a slip of paper and you have to collect the stamps. I don't even know what all the stamps were for, but you have different checkpoints," Luca explained. "So [at one, for example] you have to disinfect all your bags, and they check your temperature... But it is only when you have like your five or six stamps, that you're actually in the country."

North Korea closed its borders to tourists back in 2020 due to rising cases of but since the country has worked to upgrade their healthcare.

"It is one of the things the North Koreans want you to see, especially since they worked to step up their healthcare system and build a new pharmacy," Luca explained. "In the pharmacy, you meet a lot of locals that are just shopping for for whatever they need."

In the UK, it perhaps would be rather surprising to see someone lay flowers at the feet of a statue, but this is part of respecting leaders in North Korea. Across the country, propaganda posters and bronze statues of the country's supreme leaders are scattered everywhere. As a tourist in the country, individuals are respected to uphold the rules and respect the leaders.

Part of this, meant Luca had to visit a bronze statue of and lay a bouquet of flowers at his feet, before bowing and retreating to allow the other tourists in his group do the same. "If you didn't buy flowers, you couldn't go," he stated.

In the modern world of technology where tourists constantly capture everything they experience through their phones, it is easily to forget who is in the background. But in North Korea, any photos taken of the leaders need to be complete — whether this is their stature or photo. Essentially, this means no zooming in, no partial photos and no cropping.

The leader must fill the picture and be positioned as straight as possible — otherwise, it is seen as disrespectful. "It's those kind of things that if you're not aware of them, you might get in trouble, but obviously the tour companies do a good job informing people beforehand," Luca revealed.

When on his trip, Luca was informed by the guides with him that when travelling through the rural areas, he could not take pictures of the poverty. "It's quite a poor country overall, especially the countryside, and you do see it. It's not like they shut the curtain — you do get the exposed to a lot of poverty," Luca said. "That's one really sensitive thing."

For a country with strict rules and regulations, you wouldn't expect it to be a place where drinking is common. But for Luca, this couldn't be further from the truth.

"You can get a beer a pound, pretty much. The stronger alcohol is surprisingly cheap, like for two or three quid would get you a decent bottle of spirit," Luca shared. "Alcohol is quite a big thing in North Korea. They are very big drinkers I would say. They have a bunch of different They have different spirits. They have soju, they have rice wine, they have lots of different things and even when you have dinner, you don't get water by default, you get beer. So it's really in the culture."