Anger as tourist performs striptease on top of Uluru

I have written before on the subject of whether or not tourists should climb Ayres Rock / Uluru or not; this is going a step too far.


The ignorance and arrogance of some tourist is truly staggering, this French lady has not only stepped over the mark but her subsequent defence just goes to demonstrate the stupidity of some western tourists.


The act of climbing Uluru is already insulting to some Aboriginal people in Australia, who ask tourists not to climb the rock which they consider to be sacred; to then add to this by stripping on the summit seems unbelievably insensitive.


It strikes me that if you have made this kind of fundamental error of judgement the only thing to do is apologise, be humble and keep your mouth shut.


Alizee Sery seems to have decided that rather than accepting she had behaved very badly, she would compound her mistake by trying to excuse it away saying “I am aware that Uluru is sacred. What we need to remember is that, traditionally, the Aboriginal people were living naked”; I feel embarrassed for her as I write this…


When I talk about Cultural Awareness I try and explain things in a way they might better understand them; I often use examples from the point of view of where they were brought up and educated.


Imagine if Alizee were in Paris and visiting the popular tourist attraction of the Notre Dame Cathedral. People are free to view the Cathedral and walk around it, but you are not allowed to behind the altar. How do you think people would react if Alizee walked behind the altar and then stripped to her bikini?


So in our fictitious situation how would she argue her case? Maybe she would say “what we need to remember is that Adam & Eve came into the world naked…”.


The point is no one would see this scenario as acceptable, so why when the scenario at Uluru would equally offend some Aboriginal people, would that be acceptable; the simple answer is, it is not.


The argument surrounding the climbing of Uluru is a different one and has been examined by me in this blog before (Click Here); local people’s feeling should always be considered in these types of situations.


When you travel you are a guest in the country you are visiting and your behaviour should reflect this.


At Safe Gap Year our Independent Travel Safety and Cultural Awareness Workshop considers issues of Travel Safety, alongside sessions on Cultural Awareness, Travel Health, Ethical and Responsible Travel, Travel Equipment, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more.


Please visit our website at http://www.safegapyear.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article Click Here
Source – Northern Territories News
Date – 28th June 2010
Submitted by – Peter Mayhew

Mongolia’s worst winter on record

Mongolia is a truly stunning country, its beauty lies in the vast open expanses, incredible culture, the friendly and generous people you meet and the feeling of being in one of the last true remote areas of the world.


The hardiness of the people who live there is a reflection of the incredibly harsh conditions. If evidence were needed of exactly how ‘easy’ our life in the UK is by comparison, during our harsh winter this year all most of us had to deal with was a few days off work and a little inconvenience in not being able to use our cars as we usually do for a week or two.


How would we survive a whole winter at -40°C?


How can you be self-sufficient when permafrost means that growing anything to sustain yourself is near to impossible for a large part of the year?


Can you really survive these conditions year after year when you live in a Ger (traditional felt tent)?


The fact is the Mongolian people are amazingly resilient, over a third of the population maintain the traditional nomadic lifestyle, but sadly as in many cultures the traditional way of life and the modern world with its integrated economy are not always compatible; this is very much the case in Mongolia today.


There are positive signs in Mongolia, but it is a young democracy surrounded by two of the world’s superpowers and abandoned by its former benefactor. It is starting to realise the potential mineral wealth which lies just below the surface and which China would gladly gobble up, but these projects take years to create wealth and require huge capital injections (which themselves often come at a cost of handing over large stakes to nation builders like China & Russia). Relatively small countries like Mongolia who are trying to help themselves but who have arrived late to the world economy, are always going to struggle.


All this matters little to the over 1 million nomads in Mongolia, their way of life is little affected by the world at large, but with an ever bludgeoning urban population crammed into two or three major cities divided by vast areas of steppe / desert and with little infrastructure, the lack of reliable services and the all but non-existent welfare state, creates predictable problems.


What does affect everyone be they nomadic herder or urban resident is the kind of winter they are slowly emerging from. The vast majority of Mongolians rely on their herds to sustain them and in most of the country yaks are the economy.


60% of all livestock in Mongolia has been lost this winter; while we rightly worry about recession at home, Mongolia has effectively lost 60% of their economy, an economy which is as real as the individual yaks and sheep that each family has lost.


It is difficult to quantify such a fundamental loss, but imagine if fire destroyed 60% of every business, 60% of every item of stock on the shelves of every store disappeared, for every ten loaves of bread on the supermarket shelf only four were available; the UK would go into total meltdown.


In Mongolia the end is not in sight, they can’t just restock, the summer months are short and the harsh conditions mean their cattle and sheep have short reproductive cycles and produce less offspring over their lifetimes. Hardy the yak may be, but evolution has developed this hardiness of this creature by reducing the yield to increase survival rates.


Think about this, if you rely on your livestock for food, in order to be self-sufficient you have to slaughter some and keep some for reproduction. If over one winter your herd is reduced by 60%, you need to increase reproduction in order to make up the numbers, but the number you have to slaughter to feed your family and prepare for another winter stays the same; there comes a point when this is no longer sustainable, something has to give.


There is the real possibility that come the spring this disaster will be perceived to be levelling off as the thaw kicks in, whereas in reality it is the long term effect which has the potential to be devastating.


The Christina Noble Children’s Foundation carry out amazing work in Mongolia and we are always delighted to recommend them to you. A little still goes a very long way in Mongolia and it never ceases to amaze me what good they can do with the little funding they get.


Please visit their website at http://www.cncf.org/ to discover more about the work they do and the volunteering opportunities they can offer.


At Safe Gap Year our Independent Travel Safety and Cultural Awareness Workshop considers issues of Travel Safety, alongside sessions on Cultural Awareness, Travel Health, Ethical and Responsible Travel, Travel Equipment, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more.


Please visit our website at http://www.safegapyear.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article Click Here
Source – CNCF
Date – March 2010

Try to be a help not a hindrance

Title – Try to be a help not a hindrance
Source – Metro
Date – 15th September 2009

There are always two key issues which stand out when choosing volunteering companies which promote gap year travel and volunteering projects.

The first is the value of the project for the host community, is it designed to meet their requirements or yours?

The second is are you provided with any real additional protection in the country you will be visiting or is more of your fee spent on fancy marketing than systems designed to assist you when you most need it?

We have often said that you need to choose carefully, there are many excellent companies out there providing excellent services and ethical and responsible volunteering projects, there are also a lot of cowboys… What frustrates me most and tends to ring my alarm bells are companies which portray themselves as charities rather than commercial companies (not to be confused with those genuine charities who tend on the whole to be more focussed on the work they undertake).

Even the big companies often have very limited information or inductions for volunteers. Choosing to go with a company rather than solo is no substitute for doing your own extensive research into your destination and learning ways to reduce the risks you may face in the country you are visiting.
Tourism Concern have indicated that their research demonstrates that one in three companies are so profit driven they don’t even meet candidates before they travel and one in four fail to offer any kind of pre-departure induction at all; where exactly is all your money going and what exactly are you paying for?

At Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness Workshop (GYITSA) considers issues of Travel Safety alongside sessions on Travel Health, Ethical and Responsible Travel, Travel Equipment, Travel Insurance, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more.

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.

2009’s hottest destination (and that’s when the trouble started)

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Title – 2009’s hottest destination (and that’s when the trouble started)
Source – The Independent
Date – 21st August 2009

Responsible and Ethical Travel often treads a thin line and those influential bodies in the travel industry have an important role in making sure they stay the right side of it; none more so than Lonely Planet.

In this case it does seem that their decision to highlight the Bay of Fires in Tasmania as the ‘hottest’ destination for 2009 has led to a local battle which the Australians are by now very used to. The three way fight between conservationists, big business and the aboriginal community.

I don’t think we can really blame Lonely Planet for this, maybe they will even have been the catalyst to help preserve this area before it is eroded through human development, much as it may have been ignored until now, it this day and age nothing stays hidden forever.

So what can you do?

Promoting Ethical and Responsible Travel is something you can play your part in. Do your research and listen to all sides of the argument before you decide how to spend your ‘tourist dollars’ and where you decide to visit.

It is very much individual choice as to where you decide to visit and how you visit. Always balance your choices with the desires of local people and the level of ‘harm’ almost any form of travel will cause. We can certainly help you find a balance which will be acceptable to you, where your positive impact can offset some of the negative impact travel inevitably has.

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 Health, Travel Safety, , Travel Equipment, Travel Insurance, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more.

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.

Row over climbing at Ayers Rock

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Title – Row over climbing at Ayers RockSource – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 9th July 2009

Well if you are reading this expecting a definitive answer to this question from me you are going to be sadly disappointed. Do I have a personal opinion on the matter? Well I know what I would do when I was confronted with the decision.

The first step is what should we be calling this majestic rock; Ayers Rock or Uluru? Here again I think the arguments are divided, but I don’t believe that they are significant, in fact I am not a great believer that indigenous names or ‘British’ names have a great deal of significance unless they were devised to offend, oppress or deride local cultures.

To climb or not to climb is slightly more complicated. As always I think our role is not to dictate but to educate. Let’s not tell people what to do or what to think, but give them the information to think for themselves; at least while the decision to climb or not is still one they can make.

Australia has been battling with its conscience for several decades; they have tried hard to right many of the wrongs of history since colonisation. It’s a battle not easily resolved, colonisation happened and it can not be undone, but a ‘happy’ medium can be found.

The Aborigines have won many arguments and concessions from the Australian government and lost others. Some would say the Aborigines have done well out of recent settlements while others say that having lost everything, any concession they win is not a victory but merely a small step towards recouping what was theirs anyway.

The argument with climbing Uluru / Ayers Rock (delete as appropriate), for me is relatively straight forward. There is no doubt it is a sacred site to the Aboriginal people. Their belief is that it disrespects their spirits to climb the rock. Where is the argument?

The argument that we don’t scramble over mosques, churches and temples when it offends those people who worship in those places seems quite reasonable. After all when entering a Buddhist temple we remove our shoes to avoid offending local sensibilities, in a Sikh temple we will when directed cover our heads and we wouldn’t stand on the alter in a church to get a better view of the murals…

Maybe I have just revealed my view point after all.

The fact is it is still down to each individual to make a choice. My suggestion would be that on a visit to the rock, first one of the tours with an aboriginal guide, not only to understand the fascinating stories they will tell of their heritage and of the rock, but because it will give you the information to make your own informed decision.

The rock itself will continue to inspire anyone who comes across it and although the tourist facilities now take a little away from it’s splendid isolation, anyone not impressed by sunset at the rock should probably consider a rethink on the rest of their trip…

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 Health, Travel Safety, , Travel Equipment, Travel Insurance, Destination Advice, Transport Options, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more.

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.

Here come the hoards

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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.

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.

New limits to Antarctic tourism

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Title – New limits to Antarctic tourismSource – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 18th April 2009

Antarctica is possibly one of the world’s last great frontiers in travel, with vast tracks of undiscovered and undiscoverable wilderness, it has over the last few years started to become accessible; if only in tiny fractions.

I am all for travel, it expands the mind and reminds us that our word is an exceptional and fascinating place with secrets yet to be revealed and places / people we can yet gain knowledge from; Antarctica is just such a place.

But there is always a balance to be found and with such a fragile ecosystem it needs protecting, so I welcome this move to limit numbers of people allowed to visit. Undoubtedly it will make the whole experience more expensive, but this is a price worth paying if it protects something so unique for future generations.

There other aspect I like about the proposal, is the limit of 100 people allowed ashore at any one time. Personally I can’t imagine anything worse than landing on Antarctica and being welcomed by crowds; it strikes me that emptiness is one of the attractions and one of the unique features of this continent, in an otherwise ever more crowded world.

I have yet to go to this magical place but some of our advisors have been and I feel like I have been given more time to visit now; let’s hope they follow through on their promises.

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.

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.

Fiji devalues dollar in crackdown

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Title – Fiji devalues dollar in crackdownSource – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 15th April 2009

On the face of it a good news story for tourists, but Fiji has been slowly taken down a very dangerous road towards effective dictatorship and people should consider carefully before they plan to travel there.

Fiji is used to coups there have been 4 in the last 20 odd years, but this one is turning out to be more sinister then most. When it first took place it almost seemed like a joke as it was postponed by a day to accommodate the annual army vs police rugby match (an important fixture in the rugby mad country), but with delay after delay in the promises of fresh democratic elections; there seems to be something distinctly more worrying afoot.

In the last few weeks that has become more apparent; when any country sacks it’s independent judiciary, it is time for the rest of the world to stand up and be heard. The concerns about Fiji which have long been talked about in Australia and New Zealand are now being strongly echoed by other nations including the UK and USA.

Amnesty International has joined the chorus of organisations voicing serious concerns at the slow erosion of freedoms in the country and the increasing grip the general has over the Fijian people.

This situation is one which makes me very sad, I have a affinity with the people of Fiji, it was among one of the first countries I visited as an independent traveller nearly 20 years ago and I have had the privilege of going back several times since. Fiji has a society (with the exception of the current military regime) from which the rest of the world has so much to learn; the emphasis on the wisdom of village elders, the fundamental respect of others being enshrined as a cornerstone of the community, honesty being respected and a welcome for visitors which is almost unparalleled anywhere else in the world.

Fiji was the reason I fell in love with the South Pacific, not only with the beauty of the islands themselves, but more fundamentally with the Fijian people. That these people should be undermined by an ever more repressive regime is not just unfair but immoral.

So where does that leave us when it comes to travel?

Well we should keep a very close eye on the situation to see how it develops and we must aware of how travel to Fiji affects local people and supports this now illegal regime. There is no evidence as yet to suggest that the current situation poses any danger to travellers so the argument is based on our desire to promote Ethical and Responsible Travel.

The Fijian Dollar has been devalued by the puppet Reserve Bank Governor precisely to promote tourism which is the major source of foreign currency income in the country and has suffered greatly over the last few years.

My suggestion is this; visiting Fiji is certainly not any more dangerous now then it was before the coup and I am not convinced that tourist should be discouraged from visiting. However I would strongly suggest that tourists and independent travellers consider how they spend their dollars when they visit. It is the Fijian people who require our ongoing support and in Fiji this is not too difficult to do without directing the bulk of your ‘tourist dollars’, the way of the government.

Buy local and stay local, both very easy to achieve in Fiji. I would advise against staying in the big international resorts and hotels which ‘feed’ into the government coffers. These big businesses are often not owned by Fijians and import much of the produce they use; besides they hardly give you the authentic Fijian experience, you’re more likely to get that at a Hawaiian night in Malaga….

My memories of Fiji and of the Christmas we spent in a village there are cherished. We were invited to join in their local celebrations and experience a lovo (feast prepared in an underground ‘oven’) which would never have happened in a five star hotel. The meagre cost of that experience went straight into local pockets.

At Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness Workshop (GYITSA) considers issues of Ethical & Responsible Travel alongside sessions on Transport Options, Travel Safety, Travel Health, Travel Equipment, Travel Insurance, Destination Advice, Documentation, Travel Money and Insurance and more. Ethical travel is always at the discretion of the individual and we never dictate where we think people should and shouldn’t travel; those are decisions independent travellers need to make for themselves. We feel that our role is to provide a balanced view, suitable information and our unbiased opinion in order for others to have the relevant information to make those decisions for themselves.

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.

Man’s £5 debt repaid 39 years on

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Title – Man’s £5 debt repaid 39 years onSource – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 19th December 2008

Undoubtedly travellers make a connection with people they meet while travelling. Many life-long friends are made and even more acquaintances; a combination of shared experiences and shared hardships, but primarily a meeting of minds, people visiting the same places for the same reasons.

Often it is the commonality that brings people together, in countries far away from home where language difficulties may stop us communicating effectively; meeting a ‘kindred spirit’ from a more familiar world is often reassuring when you feel a little out of your depth.

This is one of those travel stories which restores our trust and faith in human nature and in fellow travellers, many travellers have similar stories even if usually they are over slightly shorter periods of time.

There are two key points to remember and take from this story.

Firstly; if you make a promise keep it. This is especially important if you tell local people you will keep in touch or send them something they have requested once you get home. If you can’t fulfil your promise don’t make it in the first place. Where you probably will not lose any sleep if someone you meet on your travels fails to stay in touch or doesn’t ‘poke’ you on facebook, local people (especially in remote areas) may not take it so well. Often when you visit other countries your visit bring honour, pride and kudos on the family you visit. Their standing within their community may rise, they may well proudly tell everyone of their honoured guest. They may have very little to show for a lifetimes work and something as simple as a picture you have promised to send may become a prized possession; so make sure you send it.

The second thing to remember is that unfortunately while most travellers are honest, think like you and act like you, there are always some who don’t. Theft from travellers is not restricted to the local population, in-fact some people believe that more theft occurs between travellers then by local populations. Dorm rooms are especially notorious for this, there are unfortunately many travellers who budget badly or do not have funds they require to complete their journeys and there are those who are just plain dishonest and greedy. Never leave valuables or expensive equipment lying around unsecured, be careful where you stash your valuables (always use hostel safes where appropriate and ask for receipts if necessary) and where you display them. It never fails to amaze me how safe people feel in hostel dorm rooms sitting on their beds counting their cash before stashing it right in front of strangers…

At

Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness Workshop (GYITSA) looks at many different issues including Travel Safety and Travel Insurance, including the best ways to secure your valuables and the safest way to carry the money required for your travels.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. 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.

Burma court jails more protesters

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Title – Burma court jails more protesters
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 14th November 2008

It is always difficult to decide if this blog is really the right place to highlight the problems in Burma and to add our voice to the call for a free Burma; after all this is really about Gap Years and Independent Travel. The world is full of very worthy causes that we should be promoting; Zimbabwe; Congo; Sudan; China & Tibet; The Middle East; the list seems endless…

My justification for it is this; we don’t ignore other parts of the world where very terrible situations are occurring, there is no merit in comparing one situation with the next to see ‘which is more worthy’ and certainly during our workshops we examine the issues of Ethical Travel to those countries candidates are planning to travel to; but it is better I believe to concentrate efforts in this blog and in my life personally on one or two causes that I can be truly passionate about; where I feel I have a direct emotional link to the subject. For now we concentrate our efforts on raising the profile of; the street children in Mongolia through the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, their child sponsorship programme; and to raise the profile of the disaster that has befallen the Burmese people for the past 60 years.

So with this in mind I look at what is happening in Burma at this very moment and see yet more evidence of the insanity (literal) of the generals, who illegally ‘rule’ the country. Much as their insanity is evident in their actions, it is also clear that they are the masters of subtle but devastatingly effective suppression and that nothing anyone inside or outside of the country thinks makes even the slightest dent on their non-existent consciences.

However as much as they have never paid any attention to the opinion of rest of the world, they also like the ‘quiet life’, probably more for the effect pressure has on their trading partners, rather than any pressure they might feel from ‘western’ powers.

Maybe I’m cynical, but if I am it is only because the history of the Burmese Military Regime has proven that cynicism when it comes to their actions is usually closer to the truth than any other approach. Can it really be a coincidence that this seemingly rushed ‘judicial process’ and the disgraceful consequences have taken place when the world is consumed by the worst financial crisis in a generation, when news headlines are dominated by economic meltdown and the inside pages by the crises in Congo? There is little space or time for news agencies to print or report on this story and the lack of credible information makes them more reluctant still.

To think, if I were in Burma writing this Blog I would be looking at 20 years in one of the world’s worst gaols; my family and friends would be facing persecution and any privilege they were afforded would be removed; and many of their friends would have no option but to shun them for fear of reprisals through association…. It makes me feel quite sick to even write this with that thought in my mind…

I have written before on this blog my justification for urging people not to visit Burma on Ethical grounds. I urge you now to visit the Burma Campaign website. Anything we can do to make sure the world does not forget those people who have more courage than we in the ‘west’ can even understand, are not just locked up and forgotten, is worth doing. I have never known a Free Burma, looking at the history of Burma, few people alive in the world have and then only for a few years; I hope in my lifetime I have that opportunity and more then that I hope one day the Burmese people have the opportunity to choose that course for themselves.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.

Supporting Burma

Title – Supporting Burma
Source – Tourism Infocus
Date – Autumn 2008

Burma and it’s deep seated problems feature regularly in this blog, we try and do our bit to raise the profile of the terrible problems the country faces; problems which can almost all be laid directly at the door of the illegal and brutal military regime which has ruled the country for over 60 years. A regime who will do anything to cling on to power and who don’t think twice about using torture, extra judicial killing, threats against women and children, imprisonment and depraved violence including rape as a weapon of war, to keep control. Control over a country they have turned from a beacon of light in South East Asia; from the a country rich in resources; from a country with an industrious people who once made it the ‘rice bowl’ of South East Asia; to a basket case; to a country that spends less then 50p per capita per year on health care and education combined; to a country that can’t feed itself; to a country that desperately needs foreign aid but refuses to accept it; to a country where an already devastating cyclone is turned into a tragedy of such magnitude that most still don’t comprehend it; to a country rated as one of the world poorest.

We have written to many companies and individuals over the years giving our opinion on Burma and trying to convince them that investment in and tourism to Burma, just exasperates the problems, by providing funding to the military regime to allow them to continue their oppression. We have had some success; in one notable case persuading a well known travel company to remove Burma from their brochure and website and in its place put a link to the Burma Campaign UK website. We have received many letters in response, some have been positive, people offering to support the various campaigns, some negative generally from companies using the age old excuse of ‘freedom of choice’ as an argument for them selling trips to Burma.

We believe in freedom of choice and we agree that travellers should be able to make up their own mind where they travel to. But freedom of choice is only ‘freedom’ if you have all the information to make an educated ‘choice’. Travel companies that promote Burma use words and phrases like; ‘Shangri-La’, ‘unspoilt paradise’, ‘peaceful, spiritual Burma’. Have any of these people been to Burma and spoken to real Burmese? Do the Burmese describe Burma as ‘Shangri-La’ or is it closer to ‘hell on earth’?

Burma is undoubtedly one of the world’s most beautiful countries, the various ethnic groups in Burma are undoubtedly some of the world’s friendliest, gentlest and most spiritual people, but they are prevented from being themselves by these dictators. When people tell you that you can travel to Burma and use ‘local’ facilities that fund ‘local’ people and not the ‘government’, they show their abject ignorance of Burma. The ‘government’ control everything and areas they don’t have complete control over, they will simply not allow you to travel to. Any money you spend in Burma will provide the government with funding and almost anything you spend will be on hotels, guesthouses, transport etc that is sanctioned by the government for tourist to use. For a Burmese person to get this sanction to provide services to tourist, they need a licence which involves paying off the local ‘government’ or being in their pocket.

I am a strong advocate that tourism to Burma indirectly funds the brutal oppression. If the tour operators put that in their glossy brochures would anyone go? Probably not if rather than a picture of the serene Pagan temples, they showed the forced labour building the roads to allow tourists to visit them or pictures of one of the world’s largest child armies that helps to prop up the military junta…

There are many organisations which support the struggle for a free Burma. We recently wrote to Tourism Concern to offer our support of their excellent campaign and they chose to publish an extract of our letter, posted here for your attention. At Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) we will not dictate where you should go and where you should not go. We choose to educate rather than dictate. We have yet to meet anyone who has decided to travel to Burma once they have all the facts made available to them.

For further information, please visit The Burma Campaign UK and Tourism Concern websites.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.

Penguins and golf in Burma’s hidden capital

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Title – Penguins and golf in Burma’s hidden capitalSource – The Independent
Date – 19th September 2008

There are many countries in the world run by despicable leaders or ‘dictators’. Some would say we don’t actually have to look that far to find them, but much as we may chastise our own leaders in comparison to other parts of the world, they could be seen as veritable saints. Countries such as Singapore and the Maldives, Saudi Arabia and the even Singapore may not be top of the list when you ask about ‘dictatorships’ but look at their democratic credentials and you will soon see that they do not fall far short of the definition of a dictatorship. But for none of these countries would we advise people do not travel, because with a little foresight you can ensure that your trip has a positive impact on the country.

Burma is a different case and I strongly believe that visiting Burma at this stage is a bad idea and benefits only the corrupt, violent and abhorrent military regime, which has ruled that country without mandate for the past 45 years.

What worries me is that the situation in Burma is not well understood by the public at large, by travellers to South East Asia or seemingly to the world as a whole. Or maybe it is understood, but people choose to ignore it. The Burmese military regime certainly understand this and uses it to their advantage. When pressure is exerted on them they do sometimes give way, but they only ever give with one hand while they take away with the other and rather than loosening their grip on the country they use every opportunity to tighten their grip, including the devastating cyclone of 2007.

Recently the Burmese regime made a fuss about releasing thousands of prisoners, what they failed to disclose in their press release was the number of people they arrested the same day, many of them political prisoners. They also failed to point out that many of those released were innocent people who had been arrested a year earlier for taking part in the peaceful democracy marches of September 2007 which were brutally repressed by the army killing (according to some sources) hundreds of innocent people, including untold numbers of monks and imprisoning thousands.

The military government is frightening not just because of its brutality and nonchalance at using extreme force to stay in power, but because it’s actions are not those of a sane responsible government. The building of the new capital on the say of a soothsayer is just one example of their lunacy; it is the equivalent of Gordon Brown enslaving thousands of civilians and through their forced labour rebuilding London on the Shetland Islands on the advice of Mystic Meg. But it is no joke!

At Beyond The Blue we do not believe in telling people where they should or should not go. Our freedom to choose is something we take for granted, but should never forget is not something the rest of the world’s population does not. But we believe strongly that at this time visiting Burma is impossible without funding and legitimising the illegal brutal military regime and should therefore be avoided and discouraged. In this respect we will not provide advice on Burma in our workshops but will happily discuss the real situation in Burma and provide our compelling reasons why we have adopted our position. Candidates can then decide for themselves if they should travel to Burma or not; anyone who hears the real truth as to the situation in Burma will we believe choose not to go until the brutal military regime is defeated or die off in their make believe world in Naypyidaw. We urge all visitors to visit

http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/ for further information.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.

Help or Hindrance?

Title – Help or Hindrance?
Source – Metro
Date – 2nd September 2008

It’s a question we have discussed before on this blog, is the Gap Year volunteering on projects round the world a positive benefit or not?

There is no simple answer;

In the worst cases it costs thousands of pounds, is disruptive to the host community, destructive to the local environment, embitters local communities and the volunteer themselves who return disillusioned, disappointed and reluctant to travel more extensively and further broaden their horizons.

In the best cases, volunteers provide essential life changing improvements to local communities which they would never be able to afford or have the ability to complete on their own. It helps volunteers develop skills and knowledge that they could not gain anywhere else and opens them to cultures that broaden their horizons and literally change their lives for the better.

The trick is to make sure you get the right outcome from your experience.

The two ways to achieve this are; to get a recommendation from someone you trust (not only from someone provided by the company you choose, they are employees often with a different motivation for ‘recruiting’ you) or to do your own research.

The first step is to know what interests you and what motivates you, volunteering is a very personal thing and you must really want to take an active part in the activity you choose. Avoid peer pressure, avoid the feeling that one project holds more ‘merit’ than another. Is it morally better to spend time teaching in a school or looking after elephants? There is no moral judgement to be made here; if teaching will inspire you, then teach; if elephants inspire you, help them; it has to be your personal choice.

At Beyond The Blue (Safe Gap Year) our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness Workshop (GYITSA) considers issues of Working and Volunteering Abroad as part of a gap year. We examine issues of Travel Safety, Travel Equipment and Travel Health and which must be serious considerations when you are deciding where to travel to and what activities to undertake.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. 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.

Living among the remnants of war

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Title – Living among the remnants of war
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 13th June 2008

Mention the Laos war and most people will look at you blankly, mention just the word Vietnam and people will list film after film and song after song at you; many will even now give you their opinion on the conflict there and the US involvement in that country. That makes the following statement so unbelievable:

‘Laos is the most bombed country on earth. The US dropped 2.4 million tonnes of bombs on it during the Vietnam war – more than the allies dropped on Germany and Japan combined in World War II’

In this relatively ‘small’ country with no significant infrastructure and covered in jungle they ‘inadvertently’ got involved in a war and yet never received the focus given to their neighbour whose name will be a by-word for a war for many years to come. The Laotians have been paying the price ever since, as unexploded munitions still litter the country and regularly result in serious injury and death to the Laotians.

Sadly the readily available source of metal that the systematic bombing campaign left behind has been far too tempting to leave untouched and as in so many parts of the world the locals have seen this ‘bonanza’ and exploited it. This does provide the most wonderful images for visitors and gets cameras clicking wildly; but the darker side it causes injury and death that massively outweighs the benefit.

Unfortunately visitors to Laos can through ignorance unwittingly add to the existing problems. Souvenirs made from this scrap metal can be bought in local markets and shops and tourist think they make a good talking point once back home. The sad fact is that perpetuating this trade means that locals will seek out the scrap to make into these souvenirs placing them in further danger. We would certainly recommend that you buy local goods to take back with you, but think about the consequences of what you buy. Avoid those items that cause harm to the local population, local environment and steer well clear of items made from animals or plant that may be prohibited when you return home or travel on to your next destination.

Whatever you do, if you are travelling in Laos don’t pick up, touch or attempt to take home any of this type of ‘scrap’; stories of tourists boarding planes with souvenirs that turned out to contain unexploded munitions are not unheard of in Laos. You don’t need to be an expert to figure out what the consequences are of attempting to take such items onto a flight…

Our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop examines aspects of personal safety, Travel Safety and Ethical and Responsible Travel giving you the perfect head start when you are planning your gap year or career break to any part of the world.

Please visit our website at http://www.safegapyear.com/ or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.

Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil

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Title – Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 30th May 2008

All too often we hear that travel was not what it was 10 or 20 years ago, that the tourist trail has ruined the adventure and that the world has nothing new for travellers to discover. If ever there was a story to prove people wrong; then this is it.

The world is a very big place and there are very large parts of it which remain completely isolated and untouched by the ‘developed’ world. That in 2008 there are still tribes in the Amazon that remain ‘un-contacted’ is amazing, inspiring and very reassuring. One of the most important things is to ensure that we allow them to stay that way, that we allow them to live their lives in peace and that we protect them and their environment for future generations.

Many travellers visit parts of the world for the wrong reasons. Anyone who has spent any time in a hostel almost anywhere in the world will recognise exactly who I am talking about. You sit down and exchange travel stories with fellow travellers, something that is an essential part of the travel experience and provides you with ideas, warnings, advice and friendships; but there is always the one there (usually on his own for a reason) who tries to upstage you and everyone else in the room. You start talking about a fantastic trip you took 2km up river, they went 10km up river; you talk about a village you visited, they lived in a more remote village for a month; you met a wonderful local person who invited you in for tea and they married the chiefs daughter…. You know who I am talking about.

The thing to remember is that the world is already an amazing place, it is amazing precisely because of what we have been able to create; our modern cities, the pyramids, Angkor Watt, the aeroplane, the variety of cultures that have developed; and it is amazing for what we have not achieved, the un-contacted tribes of the Amazon, the new species we still discover on a regular basis, the vast areas of land and sea that remain unconquered. You can’t fail to be in awe of what the world has to offer, visit the great barrier reef, the Mongolian Steppe, the blue hole of Belize, the Grand Canyon and you’ll be amazed at what you see and you’ll have enough to boast about for many many years to come. If that doesn’t satisfy you, then the problem is probably closer to home.

Those people who are desperately in need of always having the more extreme adventure to boast about, are the ones most at risk of overstepping the mark. That this story has broken should already worry us, that some idiot will try and make contact with this tribe and will try and be the first to meet them, simply to satisfy their ego. Unfortunately these are exactly the type of people who will ruin the last true undiscovered wonders of the world. Those ignorant of cultural sensitivities, uneducated about the impact on their hosts and who don’t care about their environment. Through ignorance or arrogance, often claiming to be environmentally aware, eco-friendly or ‘green’; they are often no better than the loggers, shark-fin fishermen, oil companies and rogue governments, in the damage they can cause.

Ethical and Responsible Travel is not the domain of the hippie any longer; every traveller should consider their impact on the world’s environment and their host community. During our Gap Year and Independent Travel Safety & Awareness workshop we examine how you can create a positive impact, rather than have a negative effect on the communities you visit, we highlight the benefits of responsible travel to you and your hosts.

Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.

A woman drowned while giving birth, her dead child half-born

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Title – A woman drowned while giving birth, her dead child half-born
Source – The Times
Date – 11th May 2008

How appropriate this subject is to a travel safety and cultural awareness blog may be debated by some, but even if there was no link I would still feel compelled to write about it. If even one person reads it and is informed even slightly more than they were before it has been worth it and if even one pound more is donated to the Disasters Emergency Appeal (www.dec.org.uk) then it will be doubly worthwhile.

No one can be ignorant of the scale of the initial disaster in Burma, talk of 100,000 dead from the cyclone alone and many many more sentenced to death through the sheer criminal neglect of the Burmese ‘government’ and the weak response of the UN and other world ‘powers’. It seems no one has either the will or the authority to do anything about it.

The stories that are filtering through are horrific and more and more will trickle out over the next few weeks, months and years. The one which should haunt every one of us, is the very real possibility that if nothing changes and this time next year the predictions of Oxfam who yesterday said the death toll could potentially rise to 1.5 million will become a reality. That is a death toll twice that of the Rwandan genocide and about equivalent to the Khmer Rouge murderous regime of the 1970’s. Put another way it is the equivalent to the death of every man, woman and child in Birmingham and Liverpool combined; and we are talking about a slow death through suffering brought on by starvation, thirst and wholly preventable disease.

The cyclone that started this was a terrible natural disaster; it was exasperated by the lack of any credible warning by the Burmese government and by the poverty in which they have held Burmese citizens for nearly 50 years. The fact that more than a week later they are still refusing to let in aid to help their own people, is not just mind blowingly disgraceful, it is no better then them taking to the streets as they have done so many times before and shooting innocent people, but on a scale never before witnessed.

There can be no defence for what is happening, if they think the world is interested in invading their country they are wrong, besides we all know we are tied up in so many other conflicts around the world we hardly have troops left to carry out the odd ceremonial duty at home. Organisations like the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Save the Children and so many other have proved their NGO status over and over, saving lives all over the world. There are few in the world who would not cheer at the juntas collapse, but that is for another time, now all that is important is the people, the people dying every day; the people who will die in greater numbers every hour that the Burmese military government procrastinates.

I have on this blog many times before debated the merits of tourism to Burma and have advised against it on the grounds that it supports the military government’s oppression of its own people and that stance has not changed. If any proof were needed that the Burmese people need our support and solidarity against their own regime, then the inaction of their own government when they need them most is the clearest indication yet that the average Burmese life is worth nothing to their generals. Now it is time for the world to stand up and demonstrate that every Burmese life is worth as much to us, as any other life anywhere in the world.

Now more then ever tourists should avoid Burma. Travelling to disaster areas, places a burden on local resources that many can not handle. Burma certainly can’t but they will direct any resources they have away from those who need it in order to take hard currency off tourists, please don’t be a party to such crimes.

If you want to donate to help the people of Burma then please visit www.DEC.org.uk. Your money will make a difference and save lives, it may take much longer than it should but the aid agencies are the only ones who will persist in trying to save the lives of the ordinary Burmese and they need your support.
Please visit our website at www.safegapyear.com or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.