We covered quite a bit of ground during our visit, from the northern mountains to the southern demilitarized zone. Though it is forbidden to photograph between cities, I took pictures surreptitiously, much to my son’s consternation. The countryside looks like a lot of places in northern Asia — dry and brown in April — with oxen pulling carts, and few motorized vehicles.

The most striking thing was how well ordered the whitewashed villages were and how every possible piece of arable land — even steep hillsides — had been plowed and planted. Of course, we were on roads open to foreigners: Who’s to say what lay unseen beyond the horizon.

I know that we passed about 10 miles from the Yongbyon nuclear complex on one side and about 25 miles from the notorious labor camp No. 14 on the other. Every request to stop and see something of North Korean life, even shops in the cities, was denied.

As we drove, our guides asked nearly as many questions of me as I did of them. They repeatedly inquired about my work. In my visa application, I said that I managed a translation company in Beijing. It was true to a point; I was the managing director of The New York Times’s Chinese-language operations there, which translates Times stories into Chinese.