AP Reporters Given Rare Permit to Travel in N.Korea

The AP's Pyongyang bureau chief and photographer spent a week in June traveling from the North Korean capital to Mt. Baekdu on the border with China after being given rare permission by the authorities.

But Eric Talmadge and David Guttenfelder were banned from speaking to any North Koreans they met along the way and told not to stray from the designated route.

Talmadge said the regime seems to have granted permission to travel in order to promote tourism to Mt. Baekdu.

"We drove 2,150 km in a country that has barely 25,000 km of road, and only 724 km of those paved," he said.