Former President Clinton arrives to a warm welcome in Pyongyang, North Korea, last week.

Sarah Wang
Slate

North Korea left no traces in my passport, not even a visa. It showed that I left China in July and returned four days later. There was no indication of where I had been, except that I passed through customs in Dandong, a city in northeastern China that borders the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

In those four "lost" days, I traveled to Pyongyang and Kaesong, North Korea, with a dozen "potential investors" from China. Most of the people in the group were businessmen interested in buying factories, land, mines, and timber in the DPRK whenever the prohibitions on such purchases are removed.

With each passing day, the businessmen got more and more agitated because they couldn't use their computers or mobile phones—they weren't even allowed to bring them into the country. There is no Internet access in North Korea—the Pyongyang elite use an intranet to listen to music and watch movies. There are three TV channels, and North Koreans usually go to telephone booths when they need to make calls.

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