501 Places

Barber at work by railway, Puno, Peru

Whether we consider ourselves as seasoned travellers or occasional tourists, we invariably seek out the ‘authentic experience’ wherever we are staying. It may be the restaurant that sells authentic food, the authentic hotel run by local people, or the boat trip to visit the authentic village, where “people go about their daily lives as they have done for centuries, untouched by the outside world”. So just what is the authentic experience? Does it exist, and if so where should we look for it? I suggest it’s not as elusive a phenomenon as some would think.

If we take the US as an example, a natural reaction will be to dismiss New York as “not the real America”. If we take this a step further, surely the most unauthentic experiences are suffered in and around Times Square and Midtown. So let’s consider the restaurants around here. Are these authentic American? Well, the food is generally poorer than elsewhere in the city (with some notable exceptions), and many businesses operate on the principle of short-term gain. Customers will typically be passing tourists, and a good reputation is not a pre-requisite for survival as even the happy eaters will probably not return. Can we experience ‘authentic America’ here?

Christmas in New York

If you strike up a conversation with the waiter, you will probably learn about his journey to work. He may live in the Bronx or in eastern Brooklyn, and have a journey of an hour to get to work each day. He may have recently come to America from the Middle East, and tell you of his family; his children, how they are adjusting to American education, how his wife is lonely but has found fellow countrywomen to spend time with while he is at work. For him, this is the real America in which he is living.

It is similar in the most lavish hotels in India. Our first reaction may be to dismiss these as nothing to do with the ‘authentic India’. They are however very real for those who work in them and make a modest living servicing the tourist trade. And in my very limited experience in these places, the staff are very pleased when someone takes an interest in them as a human being, and the stories of their lives, their families and their aspirations are perhaps more readily available than they would have been with someone on the street. Again for these employees this was the real India in which they made a living and struggled to bring up their families.

Kyrgyz boy on horse

What is authentic? Is it that hard to find? Isn’t everything that goes on around us authentic in its own way? Isn’t it just up to us to see the reality around the gloss that is put on for our supposed benefit? Perhaps the authentic is far more real in the places that hold no pretentions, where people get on with their lives and treat us as we are: visitors/tourists/travellers, whatever we call ourselves, who have come to observe and hopefully for them dish out a few of our dollars. The authenticity comes not from a fancy costume or a traditional ritual, but from the willingness to share a little of one’s everyday life with a stranger.

As we drove towards south west London, the rain started to fall, and quickly got heavier until the wipers were working at full-speed. We questioned the sanity of going on, but having come so far and armed with a large umbrella we decided to carry on.

And what a treat! Syon Park, the grand home of the Duke of Northumberland, has set up the Enchanted Woodland for several pre-Christmas evenings. Thousands of lights decorate trees around the park, and waltzes play from hidden speakers to add to the mood of enchantment and fantasy. Apart from the low flying aircraft approaching Heathrow which is only a couple of miles from the park, once inside the park there is little to remind you that you are in London.

The lights are arranged around the park’s trees, statues and buildings, and there is something to stop and look at every few steps. Many of the light displays are constantly changing, providing an animated element to the displays. We even forgot the lashing rain for much of the hour that we spent walking along the pre-set footpath.

I’ll leave the rest of the story to the pictures I took from the walk around the park. The quality is limited by the lack of steady places to rest my camera but hopefully you’ll get the idea despite the effects of a wobbling hand.

For those who live in better climates than ours, it is probably hard to believe that right minded people who go out in this weather, worse still take their children out in it. Yet there were many families walking around the park, enjoying the lights and the displays and ignoring the foul conditions. It reminded me of that old adage “there’s no such thing as the wrong weather; there’s only the wrong attitude” or something like that.

“Take only photographs, leave only footprints”. I first saw this saying when arriving on a remote island in the Seychelles. It was written on a weather-beaten board and greeted us as we waded out of the warm water onto the pristine sandy beach. It seemed very apt, as we had taken a short boat ride across to enjoy a spot of sunbathing and would be back on the main island of Mahe before the day was out. The phrase is also used frequently in many national parks and environmentally sensitive areas. It neatly captures the philosophy that we should leave the place untouched once we have enjoyed our time there.

For the fragile environment of a national park, the advice may be sound. But I am inclined to disagree with this maxim when it comes to any visit that involves human interaction, and indeed it may be a counter-productive phrase in the battle against climate change.

We may travel halfway around the world to see a spectacular mountain or waterfall, to gamble or to drink in a famous bar. These are the attractions that entice people to take that trip. But isn’t it the case that once we are home, it is often the meetings with people along the way that become the most lingering legacy of our trip? That chance encounter with the English-speaking village teacher; or the old man who remembered his trip to our hometown some 40 years ago; or even our fellow tourists with whom we became great friends. These are the types of memories that remain for me long after the vivid recollection of the amazing sights has faded.

Knowing about the powerful potential of interactions with other people, I would be disappointed to have spent time with others, whether fellow visitors or local people, and not taken some knowledge of those people’s lives, beliefs and values, and perhaps shared a little of my own. I am thinking mainly about off-beat locations, where people are still interested in the visitors that arrive in their locality, but the same could apply anywhere. We can choose to gawp at people going about their lives, take some photographs and move on, having left no more than the proverbial footprints. But what is the point? Who have we benefitted by that exercise? Ironically, we have probably left a giant carbon footprint in order to take those photographs. Isn’t there a wasted opportunity here?

Fantastic hospitality from a group of social entrepreneurs in Manali

Travelling on big planes for long distances does have an environmental impact (let’s leave the arguments about the size of that impact aside here). I don’t want to stop travelling, and no amount of evidence or increased taxes will dampen my enthusiasm to see as much of the world as I can (although it may change how I choose to travel). Neither am I convinced in any way to ‘offset’ my guilt of contributing to global warming by paying some company to make a profit in the process of administering the diversion of a sum of my money to a token project elsewhere.

What I would like to do is to create the most positive effect I can, however small, as a result of my visit to another place. If I meet fellow tourists and share stories and ideas, speak with people from different cultures, religions or backgrounds and learn something about how they view the world we share, then my visit may have some value. If the time away from home enables me to learn something about myself that in turn changes the way I live at home for the better, then there may be a positive and lasting legacy. If, by being part of an interaction between people who may have harboured some prejudice, I play even a tiny part in creating a better level of tolerance and understanding, that can be one of the most memorable moments of a trip.

Experiences such as these will not offset the carbon footprint that we have created to reach our destinations. But they may have a positive social effect that at least creates a change for the better for ourselves and those we meet on our travels.

We were shocked to find two wolf cubs in this garden pit

In a recent 501 Places post about Travel Broadening the Mind, many people commented on the diverse benefits of travel. Some spoke of the valuable exposure to alien cultures, of the acceptance of others’ way of life and of learning that our way is not the only way.

How far should we stretch our tolerance and judgement however, when we are challenged with situations that are not only strange to us, but sometimes appear inherently wrong? Do we accept that we are witnesses to practices and behaviours that are derived from many generations, and that as witnesses we have no power other than that of observation? Does observation in itself make us complicit in the wrong that is done?

Two such situations stick in my mind. The first was when I was in Uganda 16 years ago, working as an optometrist conducting a series of eye camps. I remember seeing one young girl who was totally blind. Her corneas were totally opaque. At first she said didn’t know what had caused this, but on further examination and in conjunction with a local nurse, we found out that she had been to see a local shaman about a matter unrelated to her eyes, and he had given her a liquid to wash her face with, and specifically to put in her eyes. The main ingredient was horse urine, and this potion had proceeded to render this young girl blind. I was angry and upset at how this ‘doctor’ had damaged the life of this girl, yet as the nurse explained the process of educating people away from their faith in witch doctors is a slow, frustrating and often dangerous one.

Last year we stayed with an eagle hunter in Kyrgyzstan. We were prepared to see some blood and guts as the eagle showed off its natural killer instinct. Somehow its destruction of a wild rabbit that had just been caught for the eagle’s pleasure seemed ok. What disturbed us however was when we took a walk through his garden and found a pit in the ground with a net fastened over it. Inside the pit were two wolf cubs, pacing back and forth. The hunter explained to us how he had bought these recently and would be taking them to neighbouring Kazakhstan a week later for an eagle hunting contest. Our small group was quite shocked by this treatment of these beautiful cubs, yet we had to accept that this was the way of life and the cultural heritage of this generous man, and he had inherited his skills from his father and grandfather before him. We could only pity the poor cubs, who were unaware of the fate that lay before them.

On a different magnitude of horror, a good friend of ours travels regularly to the remote hill tribes of Indo-China and recently told us of a visit to a tribe where she witnessed at first hand many of the rituals of the animist beliefs that are held there. The most distressing story by far was of the twins that were born in the village. Believing that twins are a curse, the villagers carefully prepared the two babies for the sacrifical ritual and with great sadness suffocated them by pushing leaves into their mouths. This was necessary to appease the gods who had expressed their anger by sending these poor children. How does one challenge such deep-rooted beliefs and hope to create a change?

Yet before we get on our moral high horses, let us not forget the wickedness that is prevalent in our own societies. If those same tribal people came to the western world, there is little doubt that they would be greatly disturbed with some of the barbaric practices that we tolerate and encourage. How would they view the fact that we allow members of our society to sleep in the streets in the freezing cold of winter, while the buildings by which they shiver lie empty? Or the fact that so many of our old people are left neglected by their own children for who they sacrificed so much of their lives, and by the generation for whom they fought and struggled? Every society in the world, however supposedly developed, has its shameful sides, and while it’s much easier to see the wickedness in others’ belief systems our criticisms might start to appear more hollow when we take an objective look at our own way of life.

Long before John Gray declared that men were from Mars and women from Venus, we all knew that there were fundamental differences between us beyond the mere physical ones. But how do these differences show themselves in the travelling behaviour of the different sexes?

Aware that I only recently wrote a post about the dangers of generalisation, I will nonetheless run the risk of putting both of my size 11 feet into a whole lot of trouble with a light-hearted look at some of the ways in which the two sexes approach the question of travel in vastly different ways.

Selecting a hotel

What matters to a man:

Wi-fi, decent cable TV, wi-fi, electrical sockets to plug in chargers, DVD player, and did I mention wi-fi?

What matters to a woman:

Somewhere to plug in hair-dryer, tea-making facilities, clean bathroom, proximity to shops.

At the airport

A woman will want to be in good time so that she can enjoy the delights of the duty-free shopping on offer.

A man will want to arrive an extra hour early to catch the departure of that Airbus 380 that leaves at 11.30 every morning.

At the airport, a man will disappear immediately once through security to find the best place from which to observe the take-offs and landings on the runway. His partner may rejoin him at the departure gate armed with the latest bags and shoes. As long as she has Toblerone, he doesn’t mind.

On the plane

The woman’s main cocern is having her overhead bag close to her to ensure she can apply whatever it is she feels the need to apply during the flight. The man is already planning the quickest way to get off the aircraft on landing. If he is a thoroughbred male he will already be aware of the airports at which aircraft unload from the rear, and will be eyeing up the other men on the plane to see where he will gain an advantage. The woman, who knows what is going on, will shake her head in despair.

On arrival

At the baggage conveyer, the man’s hunter gathering instinct kicks in. He will leave his partner in a safe place, while he engages in the ruthless, often aggresive process of getting his bag off the conveyer belt as soon as it emerges. No-one will get in his way, including those women who have been unlady-like and stood near the baggage carousel. Where is their caveman?

In the rental car

Woman sits in silence wondering about that conversation they had last night. Did he really mean what he said? What did he think when she shed that tear? Is he annoyed with her?

He sits in silence too. He is busy working out the implications of his team’s defeat last night. How will the league table look next week? Who is likely to win the championship? And with that flight we just completed; is it true that he has now flown into every airport containing the letter X in the airport code?

She knows exactly what he is thinking. He doesn’t even realise they had a serious conversation last night.

I must have missed many differences… anyone care to add to the list?