“I saw no sign of the poverty I have seen in India, China or Burma. There were no signs at all and we drove all around the country – in and around the cities and out in the country,” he said.

“Everyone is housed; there was no homelessness that we saw, no unemployment. Everyone had jobs and we drove north, south, east and west across the country.

“Every bit of available land is cultivated – they are even starting to clear blocks of land in the mountain areas to grow crops.

“Food was in abundance and all the things we grow, especially vegetables.

They are very big on eating fish and chicken – mind you we were offered snails and were given what they call ‘sweet meat’ which turned out to be dog.”

North Koreans work a six-day week and they are all expected to work some time each week on the state farm which provides the food for the country.

“They also have the chance to work on their own community lots and the more they work the more points they accrue and therefore can purchase more things.

“And they can be out there working from 6am until 8pm to get ahead – it turns out they work seven days a week.”

Mr Meehan said the transport system had to be seen to be believed.

“The roads are massive and hardly used,” he said.

“Leading into Pyongyang the highways are 12 lanes wide, all on a grand scale, in the city the highways are four, six or eight lanes wide.

“Pyongyang has a population of three million, yet with its road network we were able to get from one side of the city to the other in around 10 minutes – there is no way you could do that in Sydney.

“They have a great metro system of trains, electric buses and trams.

“Pyongyang was beautiful but also spotlessly clean – it was incredible.

“But wherever we went we hardly saw any people. Every other big city around the world I have been to people are everywhere like swarming bees, this wasn’t like that. They were always working or doing something.”

He said he always felt safe, but once they were in their motels they weren’t allowed out.

“You just couldn’t go out for a walk, you were restricted where you can go as a tourist, and there are guards everywhere,” he said.

“I still don’t think they have a trust of the outside world and the Western world in particular,

“As we toured the coastline there was a six-foot high fence which was electrified, with enough space for guards to walk in between and then another electrified fence area – to keep everyone in or outsiders out.

“It is a country I think that is always prepared for possible invasion or war – on the highways every 30km or so there are 20m pillars on either side of the road.  We can only think that they are there to be felled across the highway if something happens – an anti-tank device that would block the roads – they are every 30, 40 or 50km or so.

“But there are also cleared areas on the highways of about two or three kilometres so we assume that would enable aircraft to be landed.

“We also would see soldiers in bunkers right along the coastline, just on patrol.

“But we never saw any real military power like missiles – nothing was out in the open or at least where we went.”