The Excitement of Writing
For more than a month now this blog has suffered a bit of neglect. The reason isn't purely laziness... but maybe a lack of spark? That excitement that you just want to write down everything so you'll never forget it. More as well was the lack of unique (well not unique but you get what I mean) experiences. By the time we had reached Cambodia we only had 6 weeks to get to China. This placed us firmly on the tourist trail for better part of this time. No doubt, there were great times along the way, but the sensation of doing something really special went from a flame to a simmer. Additionally with Vietnam, I felt like everywhere we went we were late to the game, experiencing a catastrophic denouement in Vietnamese backpacking tourism without understanding the story of a country untainted by high rise hotels and littered beaches. Not to say that either Vietnam or Cambodia are awful, they are still very beautiful, yet by the end of Vietnam there was a mood of exhaustion. The relentless hassle for money involving lies, aggression and unnecessary products (selling in masses to perceivably no backpackers with a brain) was shattering. There became a point where ashamedly we could not help being rude to avoid "you buy from me this one" in excess of 20 times.
Is Backpacking Suffering?:
There's a new tourism that's taking over these two countries- Package holidays and 5 star indulgence. Backpacking in some areas is starting to become minor business. Especially in the world heritage sights. Hoi An, Siem Reap and, although in Laos, Luang Prabang all are seeming less quaint than described and a bit more Disneyland Resort. They are too nice. In Siem Reap it seemed as though it's angkor wat and your hotel. We gave blood at the childrens hospital- a charity aiming to provide every cambodian (and foreign!) child under 16 with free healthcare. We were two out of 150 tourists who had done it that year. Times that number by 1000 and thats still probably a fraction of the amount of people seeing ankor wat each year. It's like that kind of tourism, I can only think of now, in Rome or the Vatican where people walk blindly through countless beautiful basilicas to the Sistine Chapel, take a couple of pictures and leave. I don't know if it's my smug attitude towards travelling but the true beauty so far has seemed to be in those other 'basilicas'. Of course this is insanely ironic but sometimes you just get the feeling of "f****** tourists!"
(I'm probably making it sound worse than it is, maybe it's writing this a four in the morning so I might be a bit grumpy.)- There were some amazing things that we did, so this part maybe it was the laziness to write it down.
"You should've been here 10 years ago,"
I hope that in 30 years you can still get a backpack and see some of the most beautiful things in the world for pocket change. But I have a feeling that it's not going to last for very much longer. And there is more money in people who have a lot of money. So who can hardly blame the business owners. I would love to believe in investment to preserve beauty over the investment for more money- but i think that is largely naiive.
But
But I am giving an opinion based on a tour of vietnam that varied somewhat little from the tourist trail. There are definitely places people have told me of that are untouched by the big hand of capitalism. Given more time and i could've been ranting about a completely amazing experience. It just looks like those opportunities are dwindling and harder to get to.
Something New:
The excitement of writing looks like it is coming back. We arrived in China today and just walking over a bridge not only put us forward an hour in time, but into a different world. After only 15 hours I can tell that this place is going to be an adventure. And as Rosie sleeps next to me on this cockroach infested bus bed shared by five I couldn't be happier.
