- Extreme poverty set side by side with hotels catering for the super rich tourist - uncomfortable viewing in all three countries.
- Nixon's secret war that's not very secret anymore which royally f***ed up Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
- Western influences - the bad ones - drugs, alcohol at the extreme end of abuse.
- Pol Pot being a psycho - watch the "Killing Fields" and you don't even come close.
26 March 2006
People of Strength
The people of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos - this was gonna be one of those vaguely intelligent posts, but really a summary has more effect:
Old Haunts
1967... my mother spent nine months living and working in Vietnam via the Australian Government during the Vietnam/American War helping set up medical facilities and equipment for local civilians...
2006... I arrive in a different time and a different century to check out some of her old haunts and see what the last forty years has done to a country since it's reunification and embrace of Communism...
And I've had writer's block on this for nearly a year! So much to say and so few words that I can find.
2006... I arrive in a different time and a different century to check out some of her old haunts and see what the last forty years has done to a country since it's reunification and embrace of Communism...
And I've had writer's block on this for nearly a year! So much to say and so few words that I can find.
An Ancient Wonder of the World
I have to admit to being "templed" out... I have seen the temples of Angkor plus numerous other temples of religion from Hindu to Buddhist, with regional variations inbetween... I'm not sure I could cope with more day trips to see more temples so I probably shan't! However, they were all worth it - they are all magnificent in their own way, but the Temples of Angkor are truely a wonder and truely, really rather ancient.
The intricately chiselled carvings are amazing in their complexity and the sheer number and size of them beggars belief and then even more so when you realise if was all really rather a long time ago and well over several centuries - absoultely outstanding craftmanship, patience and dedication must have been involved to achieve the temples they built and carved.
The Angkor Wat is the temple that everyone gets to see from their living rooms; huge, imposing and well restored it is the daddy of all temples! Others are marginally smaller in size but no less in design and intricacy - one of which has four columns of four buddha faces staring down at you - "big brother" (or should that be buddha?!) ancient style perhaps?? Others have imposing life-like rock carvings of great, ferocious looking creatures at each entrance way intent on intimidating you despite the fact they are not real... while others have been left for nature to consume with enormous tree roots spiralling down the side of crumbling ruins.
Apparently all the tourist activity of climbing up and down ancient temples is causing subsidence or something - basically the old buildings can't take the pressure anymore. Which isn't really surprising when you see the bus loads of rather well dressed looking tourists coming through. It also makes it hard to get a classic shot of the main temple without a gazillion other people in your photo. No easy answers to that one, since by being there myself I have contributed to the overall decline, but I at least stayed in a local run place not a super-duper place that sits uncomfortably next to local poverty.
The intricately chiselled carvings are amazing in their complexity and the sheer number and size of them beggars belief and then even more so when you realise if was all really rather a long time ago and well over several centuries - absoultely outstanding craftmanship, patience and dedication must have been involved to achieve the temples they built and carved.
The Angkor Wat is the temple that everyone gets to see from their living rooms; huge, imposing and well restored it is the daddy of all temples! Others are marginally smaller in size but no less in design and intricacy - one of which has four columns of four buddha faces staring down at you - "big brother" (or should that be buddha?!) ancient style perhaps?? Others have imposing life-like rock carvings of great, ferocious looking creatures at each entrance way intent on intimidating you despite the fact they are not real... while others have been left for nature to consume with enormous tree roots spiralling down the side of crumbling ruins.
Apparently all the tourist activity of climbing up and down ancient temples is causing subsidence or something - basically the old buildings can't take the pressure anymore. Which isn't really surprising when you see the bus loads of rather well dressed looking tourists coming through. It also makes it hard to get a classic shot of the main temple without a gazillion other people in your photo. No easy answers to that one, since by being there myself I have contributed to the overall decline, but I at least stayed in a local run place not a super-duper place that sits uncomfortably next to local poverty.
Un-Sustainable Un-Eco Tourism (a.k.a a bit of a rant and a rave!)
Sadly there is always a downside to toursim that should instead help bolster the local community while improving livlihoods without damaging either the environment or people's sensibilities!
In Siem Reap (the town closest to the ancient temples of Angkor) the main "highway" (I say highway, but really two lanes in opposite directions with enormous potholes for the driver to chicane around) has 5 star hotels on either side - totally swish, totally swanky, totally shiny and totally out of bloody place. Side by side with these looming bits of Western life is the poverty; the dirt, the dust the street kids begging, the amputees also begging, the locals haggling and hassling... it is a huge juxtoposition and those hotels are totally inappropriate. There are other ways to provide the comfort and standards needed by certain groups of people without resorting to the building equivalent of a slap in the face to local people. I also was very keen to know (although never found out) if the hotels were locally owned (better) or part of an international chain (awful)...
The tour buses are also a bit full on. Not only are there lots and lots of them full to bursting with European or Japanese tourists they also help contribute to the sinking of some of the temples as they all get to the same temples at the same time and all the people tramp up and down ancient stairways with their state of the art photography equipment to get the best view - oh lucky lucky people that manage to get a shot without other tourists in the way!
So added to this is the use of the US dollar as an eqally accepted alternative to the Cambodian Riel - it's a wonderful way to increase the price and round everything up to the nearest dollar... same, same in Vietnam (although not quite so regulalry used) and Laos.
Riding round freestyle on the back of a motorbike through the mountainous region of Dalat, Vietnam was also an eye opener in many ways... a gorgeous lake surrounded by pristine pine forest was being slayed and a tarmac road was being built around the lake. My lovely local guide, Nam told me, "They build the road for the tourists and when they finish road they build hotels next to the lake for the tourists to have nice place and nice view". A bright idea of the government no less in order to bring in more tourism dollar! Nevermind that travellers like myself detest exactly this kind of development, it is aimed at the fussy holidaymaker - a far higher class of traveller than myself and usually the type that would like their little bit of home in the middle of Vietnam - what an earth is the point of even going abroad if this is what they want?? And even more so if they have to destroy a precious natural resource in order to do it. Arrghh - so frustrating.
The natural scenery of limestone cliffs of Vang Vieng, Laos is totally amazing and majestic - truely a sight to behold. The town of Vang Vieng has sprung up chiefly to service tourists travelling from Vientiane to Luang Prabang with the added attraction of a bit of caving and some tubing (going with the flow down a river in a giant tractor tube as you do!). The current development is low-level shacks and a few riverside bungalows thown in, although the pace of it is overwhelming... speaking to people who were there two years ago (pretty much when I started off on my travels) they said half the town didn't exist and the riverside bamboo bars were merely platforms of bamboo with locals selling beers.
So now they call the main road "Khao San Road" and it's very much like the original in Bangkok, albeit in miniture... bars, restaurants, money exchange, tour shops, internet access... you name it, it's there... everything a traveller needs. So yes, it is handy but the charm of this place is that it is in the middle of nowhere, very rural and nearly untouched and yet somehow I feel that it won't stay that way and will be a major destination on the tourist trail with none of the existing charm. The Laos people are reknown for their friendliness to travellers (which makes a nice change!) except in Vang Vieng I noticed a distinct attitude no matter how much you smile or cover yourself up with clothing - almost like they wanted to emulate the often fed-up attitude of their Bangkok counterparts... now that is a shame and totally our fault.
Ultimately it is becoming harder and harder to travel the world and see it as it is. Rather it is easier to go where all the people go and transform a place into a ill-trained circus of tourists... and the new places such as Vang Vieng get more and more talked about, more and more visited until the original reason for going seems rather lost. Don't get me wrong, I like that locals often seem to improve their lives with tourism, I just wonder at what cost and I wonder how an earth it would be possible to have a happy balance between the environment, the local people and their traditions and the on-going rampage of tourism through little known parts of the world. I also realise that by being there and doing my traveller thing, I have contributed to all my own complaints... well, at least I try to recognise the effect of it all I guess.
In Siem Reap (the town closest to the ancient temples of Angkor) the main "highway" (I say highway, but really two lanes in opposite directions with enormous potholes for the driver to chicane around) has 5 star hotels on either side - totally swish, totally swanky, totally shiny and totally out of bloody place. Side by side with these looming bits of Western life is the poverty; the dirt, the dust the street kids begging, the amputees also begging, the locals haggling and hassling... it is a huge juxtoposition and those hotels are totally inappropriate. There are other ways to provide the comfort and standards needed by certain groups of people without resorting to the building equivalent of a slap in the face to local people. I also was very keen to know (although never found out) if the hotels were locally owned (better) or part of an international chain (awful)...
The tour buses are also a bit full on. Not only are there lots and lots of them full to bursting with European or Japanese tourists they also help contribute to the sinking of some of the temples as they all get to the same temples at the same time and all the people tramp up and down ancient stairways with their state of the art photography equipment to get the best view - oh lucky lucky people that manage to get a shot without other tourists in the way!
So added to this is the use of the US dollar as an eqally accepted alternative to the Cambodian Riel - it's a wonderful way to increase the price and round everything up to the nearest dollar... same, same in Vietnam (although not quite so regulalry used) and Laos.
Riding round freestyle on the back of a motorbike through the mountainous region of Dalat, Vietnam was also an eye opener in many ways... a gorgeous lake surrounded by pristine pine forest was being slayed and a tarmac road was being built around the lake. My lovely local guide, Nam told me, "They build the road for the tourists and when they finish road they build hotels next to the lake for the tourists to have nice place and nice view". A bright idea of the government no less in order to bring in more tourism dollar! Nevermind that travellers like myself detest exactly this kind of development, it is aimed at the fussy holidaymaker - a far higher class of traveller than myself and usually the type that would like their little bit of home in the middle of Vietnam - what an earth is the point of even going abroad if this is what they want?? And even more so if they have to destroy a precious natural resource in order to do it. Arrghh - so frustrating.
The natural scenery of limestone cliffs of Vang Vieng, Laos is totally amazing and majestic - truely a sight to behold. The town of Vang Vieng has sprung up chiefly to service tourists travelling from Vientiane to Luang Prabang with the added attraction of a bit of caving and some tubing (going with the flow down a river in a giant tractor tube as you do!). The current development is low-level shacks and a few riverside bungalows thown in, although the pace of it is overwhelming... speaking to people who were there two years ago (pretty much when I started off on my travels) they said half the town didn't exist and the riverside bamboo bars were merely platforms of bamboo with locals selling beers.
So now they call the main road "Khao San Road" and it's very much like the original in Bangkok, albeit in miniture... bars, restaurants, money exchange, tour shops, internet access... you name it, it's there... everything a traveller needs. So yes, it is handy but the charm of this place is that it is in the middle of nowhere, very rural and nearly untouched and yet somehow I feel that it won't stay that way and will be a major destination on the tourist trail with none of the existing charm. The Laos people are reknown for their friendliness to travellers (which makes a nice change!) except in Vang Vieng I noticed a distinct attitude no matter how much you smile or cover yourself up with clothing - almost like they wanted to emulate the often fed-up attitude of their Bangkok counterparts... now that is a shame and totally our fault.
Ultimately it is becoming harder and harder to travel the world and see it as it is. Rather it is easier to go where all the people go and transform a place into a ill-trained circus of tourists... and the new places such as Vang Vieng get more and more talked about, more and more visited until the original reason for going seems rather lost. Don't get me wrong, I like that locals often seem to improve their lives with tourism, I just wonder at what cost and I wonder how an earth it would be possible to have a happy balance between the environment, the local people and their traditions and the on-going rampage of tourism through little known parts of the world. I also realise that by being there and doing my traveller thing, I have contributed to all my own complaints... well, at least I try to recognise the effect of it all I guess.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)