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SALT LAKE CITY — It was three years ago when Maxwell Leary first stepped foot in Pyongyang, North Korea. He was the only American in his group of nearly a dozen students on the 14-day tour of the country three years ago.
"They don't take you there to just see the sites,” Leary said about the tour company. “They take you there with a goal, you know, to learn.”
Leary, 25, is openly talking about his experience since hearing the news of Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old American student who was detained in North Korea. In March 2016, Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years hard labor after being accused of removing a propaganda poster off a wall in his hotel. Last week, he was flown to the U.S. in a coma and died days later from extensive brain damage.
"Obviously, it was a little heart-wrenching, just to know that he had been captured but then again, you're going into North Korea,” Leary said. “You got to be ready for that.”
Leary said he stayed at the same hotel where Warmbier was accused of committing the crime a year and a half later. He said his experience was a lot different and he would never forget the time he spent in Pyongyang, Kaesong, and Wonsan.
“It was probably one of the greater experiences of my life,” he said. “I came back with a lot of knowledge. Obviously just the experience in and of itself, you can study about North Korea but being there is totally different.”
At the time, he was studying at a university in China and learned of the opportunity to travel to North Korea. He flew from Beijing to Pyongyang, the only way an American could enter the country.
Leary was only allowed to take pictures in approved areas, like the demilitarized zone at the county’s border with South Korea.
“You see some Americans on the other side looking at me like ‘Wink if you need help’,” he said about his pictures he took on the North Korean side of the DMZ.
His biggest takeaway was realizing how kind the residents were to the tourists.
"You meet the people, you talk to the people and they are personable. When you connect with the people, your fears go down,” he said. “We would pass military guards and they would wave to you. They see a Caucasian person and they are just, you know, they just want to say hi and talk to you."
Leary realized it was a risk traveling to that country, but said it was one he prepared for.
“From the clothing that I packed, to what was in my backpack, I was very consciously trying to be courteous as well and just as safe as I can,” he said.
The State Department is now citing the case of Otto Warmbier as yet another reason they strongly discourage U.S. citizens from visiting North Korea. Despite their warnings, the State Department said 1,000 Americans visit the country every year.
Although Leary had a positive experience, he can't help but think, “What if?”
“It kind of scares you. Maybe I did get lucky,” he said. Maybe they framed [Warmbier], you know."
The tour group who took Warmbier to North Korea, Young Pioneer Tours, has since changed its policy and will no longer take Americans to the reclusive state.
