Chongchongang Hotel

Introduction
Visiting
Anecdotes

The Chongchongang Hotel is a seriously obscure hotel in a little-visited city.

Not to be confused with the Chongchon Hotel which is a regularly used place in the Mt. Myohyang area (Chongchon, meaning blue water’ is the name of the river that runs past both of these places).

Chongchongang Hotel is the only hotel available for tourists visiting the city of Anju.

Introduction

Many hotels in North Korea are almost never used by foreign tourists, but this one sees almost no camera-toting groups or individuals showing up.

However, it is well within the range of Pyongyang (just a 90-minute drive, more or less on the way to the Mt. Myohyang area too).

The main reason why nobody stays here is that in the city in which it is located, Anju, there is really only one thing to see for tourists.

This is the Paeksong Pavilion (which is popular with locals, worth a visit, but still just one place in the whole city).

Visiting

Exterior & Interior

A 5-storey main building, somewhat dated by kept in good condition holds the lobby and most rooms, the lobby is the usual DPRK 70s style grey stone area, with large areas of under-utilised space, wide corridors, and paintings of various iconic mountain scenes on the walls.

Rooms

Rooms are basic but good enough and will look familiar to anyone who has stayed at regional hotels across the DPRK; en suite, low beds, of course there are some issues with limited hot water and electricity, but these are all predictable and can be worked around.

Restaurant

Chongchongang Hotel restaurant (the only one in Anju that foreign tourists can use) is to the side of the hotel, along a corridor. There is a basic bar and a larger car park, if starved for activity you could go and stand/sit outside after the day is done.

Anecdotes

One interesting story is that this was the main hotel used to quarantine foreigners who came to North Korea during the 2014/2015 Ebola outbreak.

At that time, the country was closed to tourists but other foreign visitors were admitted for pressing reasons.

A 21-day quarantine was enforced though and this was the venue for most folks who endured this experience. So, while very few foreigners visit here those that have done do tend to stay longer than in most other hotels!

For most visitors, one night will be enough, either on the way to or from Mt. Myohyang and as an interest-piece rather than an actual treat.

One other thing to encourage you to stay here; your guides have almost certainly never been here either, so you can all be tourists together and experience something new!

Photos in this Travel Guide all provided by the amazing Marcus Neumann - thanks Marcus!

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