Title – Here come the hoards
Source – The Independent
Date – 29th April 2009
I found this article very interesting and a good example of the difficulty I have sometimes within myself in deciding where to travel next. It made me examine my motivations and reminded me that every individual has unique criteria for the travel and how everyone has to make those choices which are right for them.
I struggle with my choices sometimes because I am naturally drawn to more remote locations, the less other travellers the better. It is a bit of a selfish approach, but I never begrudge other travellers I bump into when I’m there; why would I, after all they have just made the same choices I have, so they can’t be bad people….
Where I would feel guilt is if I ever reached the point where I tried to stop tourism for any but the best reasons, such as; the fragility of the environment, for justifiable political motives (such as Burma) or where the impact on the local communities are actually detrimental or unwelcome.
Where tourism has an unsustainable environmental impact, we have to protect those areas. Where possible this should be done through limiting sustainable numbers, a practise which normally results in higher costs to visitors, but one which must be accepted for the greater good. These practices can already be seen in places like Galapagos and Machu Picchu, although some might argue they don’t yet go far enough.
A similar principle can be seen where local people have chosen to limit tourism to avoid either harming their traditional way of life or eroding their society. Bhutan for example has limited the number of visitors through a quota system and charges a US$200 a day tax on visitors used to support this very resource poor / culture rich country. Other communities have shunned tourism completely and banned it from their shores, including some islands in the Indian Ocean or towns and villages within countries that have decided to keep themselves to themselves; I was lucky enough to be invited into one such village in Vanuatu and experienced a fascinating festival of music and dance.
The key point in all of this is that visitors should realise the privilege it is to visit another country, meet local people, to view the incredible natural and man-made sights. Even somewhere like Angkor Wat with it’s 2 million visitors; it is not our right to visit, it is our privilege to be invited to visit by the Cambodian people.
I will not pretend that I would not rather visit Angkor with only a handful of other visitors about, but I will never begrudge the Cambodian people the opportunity to generate an income to better their lives by encouraging as many people as possible to this most magnificent monument to human endeavour.
Too often I hear travellers from the UK complain that tourism is ruining local culture; people visiting Angkor and complaining of the crowds; visitors stating that money is making local people unhappy because they can’t continue with their traditional way of life; very very rarely do I hear these same people ask genuine locals those same questions. After all what if a visitor from Papua New Guinea to London complained about the crowds at the Tower of London and commented on how our way of life had been ruined by money, preventing us from living our ‘traditional way of life’ or their disappointment not to see Morris Dancing on every street corner…
The ‘traditional way of life’ we all strive to see on our travels is often very tough. We ‘dip’ in and out of it and think it quaint, but we would never accept poor health care, poor sanitation, lower life expectancy, toiling for 12 hours a day in basic subsistence farming which leaves you open to famine and flood or the lack of education and opportunity for the next generation; why should anyone else?
People often ask me where they should go and what they should see. Angkor is certainly one of those sights near the top of my list. The next question they ask is ‘has it not been ruined by the hoards of people visiting?’ I visited Angkor before the 2 million visitors of today, it was a much more serene place than today, there was more of an ‘Indiana Jones’ feeling to it and I loved that. Stories I tell of having to bribe soldiers and forestry officials in order to visit the ‘River of 1000 Lingas’ and uncovering whole ‘Reclining Buddha’ statues under banks of mud are among my favourites; these days I hear they do guided tours and many of the carvings have been damaged, stolen or removed. I may not be helping my own argument here….
My point is this; yes things change, maybe it is for the worse for some travellers, but it is for the better for many who may never have had the opportunity before (or known the right person to bribe…). It is better for local people who can now make an income from tourism, there are more jobs available for guides, wardens and the compulsory hawkers who I am sure now work that area as well.
Would it ruin it for me now visiting Angkor? Certainly not, if I were going for the first time, I can guarantee when I first laid eyes on Angkor I would still be speechless; it is the most magnificent of human achievements. It would be a different experience now, but experiences by their very nature are individual and today’s experience will be totally different from the one five or ten years from now. Not better or worse just different and individual. You haven’t missed the boat by not having visited before, you are just on a different type of boat.
It is very easy to get selfish when travelling, we all do it. Try and really think local, buy local and stay local; that way your travel fulfils your need for adventure and discovery, helps those places you visit meet their need for sustainability and helps to improve their lives the way they want.
At
Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness Workshop (GYITSA) considers issues of Ethical and Responsible Travel, alongside sessions on Travel Safety, Travel Health, Travel Equipment, Travel Insurance, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more. Travel is one of life’s great privileges and as with any privilege it should be appreciated and respected.Source – The Independent
Date – 29th April 2009
I found this article very interesting and a good example of the difficulty I have sometimes within myself in deciding where to travel next. It made me examine my motivations and reminded me that every individual has unique criteria for the travel and how everyone has to make those choices which are right for them.
I struggle with my choices sometimes because I am naturally drawn to more remote locations, the less other travellers the better. It is a bit of a selfish approach, but I never begrudge other travellers I bump into when I’m there; why would I, after all they have just made the same choices I have, so they can’t be bad people….
Where I would feel guilt is if I ever reached the point where I tried to stop tourism for any but the best reasons, such as; the fragility of the environment, for justifiable political motives (such as Burma) or where the impact on the local communities are actually detrimental or unwelcome.
Where tourism has an unsustainable environmental impact, we have to protect those areas. Where possible this should be done through limiting sustainable numbers, a practise which normally results in higher costs to visitors, but one which must be accepted for the greater good. These practices can already be seen in places like Galapagos and Machu Picchu, although some might argue they don’t yet go far enough.
A similar principle can be seen where local people have chosen to limit tourism to avoid either harming their traditional way of life or eroding their society. Bhutan for example has limited the number of visitors through a quota system and charges a US$200 a day tax on visitors used to support this very resource poor / culture rich country. Other communities have shunned tourism completely and banned it from their shores, including some islands in the Indian Ocean or towns and villages within countries that have decided to keep themselves to themselves; I was lucky enough to be invited into one such village in Vanuatu and experienced a fascinating festival of music and dance.
The key point in all of this is that visitors should realise the privilege it is to visit another country, meet local people, to view the incredible natural and man-made sights. Even somewhere like Angkor Wat with it’s 2 million visitors; it is not our right to visit, it is our privilege to be invited to visit by the Cambodian people.
I will not pretend that I would not rather visit Angkor with only a handful of other visitors about, but I will never begrudge the Cambodian people the opportunity to generate an income to better their lives by encouraging as many people as possible to this most magnificent monument to human endeavour.
Too often I hear travellers from the UK complain that tourism is ruining local culture; people visiting Angkor and complaining of the crowds; visitors stating that money is making local people unhappy because they can’t continue with their traditional way of life; very very rarely do I hear these same people ask genuine locals those same questions. After all what if a visitor from Papua New Guinea to London complained about the crowds at the Tower of London and commented on how our way of life had been ruined by money, preventing us from living our ‘traditional way of life’ or their disappointment not to see Morris Dancing on every street corner…
The ‘traditional way of life’ we all strive to see on our travels is often very tough. We ‘dip’ in and out of it and think it quaint, but we would never accept poor health care, poor sanitation, lower life expectancy, toiling for 12 hours a day in basic subsistence farming which leaves you open to famine and flood or the lack of education and opportunity for the next generation; why should anyone else?
People often ask me where they should go and what they should see. Angkor is certainly one of those sights near the top of my list. The next question they ask is ‘has it not been ruined by the hoards of people visiting?’ I visited Angkor before the 2 million visitors of today, it was a much more serene place than today, there was more of an ‘Indiana Jones’ feeling to it and I loved that. Stories I tell of having to bribe soldiers and forestry officials in order to visit the ‘River of 1000 Lingas’ and uncovering whole ‘Reclining Buddha’ statues under banks of mud are among my favourites; these days I hear they do guided tours and many of the carvings have been damaged, stolen or removed. I may not be helping my own argument here….
My point is this; yes things change, maybe it is for the worse for some travellers, but it is for the better for many who may never have had the opportunity before (or known the right person to bribe…). It is better for local people who can now make an income from tourism, there are more jobs available for guides, wardens and the compulsory hawkers who I am sure now work that area as well.
Would it ruin it for me now visiting Angkor? Certainly not, if I were going for the first time, I can guarantee when I first laid eyes on Angkor I would still be speechless; it is the most magnificent of human achievements. It would be a different experience now, but experiences by their very nature are individual and today’s experience will be totally different from the one five or ten years from now. Not better or worse just different and individual. You haven’t missed the boat by not having visited before, you are just on a different type of boat.
It is very easy to get selfish when travelling, we all do it. Try and really think local, buy local and stay local; that way your travel fulfils your need for adventure and discovery, helps those places you visit meet their need for sustainability and helps to improve their lives the way they want.
At
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.
For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.
No comments:
Post a Comment