There isn’t much to see at the North Korean border, but the contrast between lively Dandong and depresse
d Sinuiju does provide a vivid illustration of the different paths to development taken by China and its communist ally. There are two ways to see the border — by boat and by bridge. Most visitors do both. Boats leave from inside the Yal Jiang Gongyun (6:30am-5:30pm; 1/15), a 10-minute walk south of the railway station at the end of Sh Wei L. Large boats, taking 20 minutes and costing 8 ($1), take a while to fill up, so it’s best to opt for the smaller, more expensive motorboats that take 10 minutes and cost 18 ($2.25). Drivers will hand you a flimsy life jacket, then whip you around to within 3m (10 ft.) of Sinuiju so you can take pictures of the rusting cargo boats and sad factories that dominate the North Korean side. A few blocks west, along Jiangyn Jie, is the Yal Jiang Qio (6am-6pm; 15/$2), a unique horizontal rotation bridge bombed by the United States in 1950. Korea dismantled its half shortly after the Korean War armistice, rendering the bridge useless. You can wander out to the still-mangled end of the Chinese section, where someone has installed a pair of bomb casings as a reminder.
There is a clumsy diorama of the bombing and several other exhibitions related to the Korean War inside the less-than-objective Memorial Hall of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (Kngmei Yuncho Jninguan; open May-Sept 8am-4:30pm, Oct-Apr 8am-4pm; 22/$3), located on a hill on the north side of Shngshan Jie, in the northwest part of town. Most of the captions are in Chinese and the exhibits could benefit from a good dusting, but the museum’s alternative take on the war is interesting nonetheless. The museum is next to a large memorial to Korean War martyrs visible from the road. Take bus no. 21 from the railway station, get off at the Tiyguan, and walk northwest.
Border Crossing: North Korea & Russia–At press time, United States citizens were not allowed to travel from Dandong to North Korea. CITS in Dandong can arrange tours for other nationalities, but independent Beijing-based operations like foreign-run Koryo Tours (www.koryogroup.com) can also pick you up in Dandong, charge roughly the same rates, and have more experience with foreigners. The paperwork takes 2 weeks to process.
Crossing the border from Dongbei into Russia, either on the Trans-Siberian train or at one of the border posts in Heil贸ngjiang and Inner Mongolia, is easier but also requires a visa. Standard tourist visas can usually only be arranged at the Russian Embassy in Beijing. Keep in mind that you’ll have to arrange for a Chinese double-entry visa if you plan to come back to China from either country.
