Absolutely. And I'm 100% right. Travel is not about fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and pricey textiles.
You know how I got to Luang Prabang? I sat on a boat for two days as it chugged its way down the Mekong, barely faster than the current, passing little more than water buffalo, the occasional thatched village built on a muddy river bank, and jungled hills. It would stop to unload the occasional sack of rice or take on a screaming pig stuffed in a burlap bag. The river was the color of coffee and at dusk the hills turned purple and the sky darkening shades of red and orange. You could see fisherman tossing nets in miniscule silhouette against huge granite peaks overflowing with green.
And this article tells you to fly in from Bangkok.
Not all of us have vacation time to take off to Southeast Asia for 4 months.
Absolutely. And I'm 100% right. Travel is not about fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and pricey textiles.
You know how I got to Luang Prabang? I sat on a boat for two days as it chugged its way down the Mekong, barely faster than the current, passing little more than water buffalo, the occasional thatched village built on a muddy river bank, and jungled hills. It would stop to unload the occasional sack of rice or take on a screaming pig stuffed in a burlap bag. The river was the color of coffee and at dusk the hills turned purple and the sky darkening shades of red and orange. You could see fisherman tossing nets in miniscule silhouette against huge granite peaks overflowing with green.
And this article tells you to fly in from Bangkok.
Not all of us have vacation time to take off to Southeast Asia for 4 months.
You and Hemingway would get along great, BTW.
EDIT: In addition, if I took your advice and travelled to the midwest, I'd hop on a combine with a farmer and take in the yellow corn and blue skies. Then I'd sigh as I recalled the deer running across the edge of the field, and think of the musky scent of corn dust.
That's not travelling. That's take your vacationer to work day.
Actually, that sounds exactly like traveling to me.
Traveling is a process at its best. It is not the same thing as vacation. Traveling is about getting out of your comfort zone, challenging yourself, and being open to new experiences. Going half way around the world to sit in a four star villa does none of that. All you are doing is insulating yourself from the place you supposedly want to see. You are a poverty voyeur, peeking out at the less fortunate from behind air conditioned glass.
One of the big problems I have with this article is that it recommends places owned by rich foreigners or international hoteliers. It's better to spend your money at places owned by locals. I don't understand all these people, typically well off liberals like the average NY Times reader, who lament the globalization of developing countries and then go stay at the Ritz Carlton. They don't really feel badly for cultural erosion, they feel badly that it might not be there for them to see one day.
G. Keenan wrote:
Actually, that sounds exactly like traveling to me.
Traveling is a process at its best. It is not the same thing as vacation. Traveling is about getting out of your comfort zone, challenging yourself, and being open to new experiences. Going half way around the world to sit in a four star villa does none of that. All you are doing is insulating yourself from the place you supposedly want to see. You are a poverty voyeur, peeking out at the less fortunate from behind air conditioned glass.
One of the big problems I have with this article is that it recommends places owned by rich foreigners or international hoteliers. It's better to spend your money at places owned by locals. I don't understand all these people, typically well off liberals like the average NY Times reader, who lament the globalization of developing countries and then go stay at the Ritz Carlton. They don't really feel badly for cultural erosion, they feel badly that it might not be there for them to see one day.
Well it depends of if you're talking about travel to experience what another country is really like, or if you're travelling to vacation.
Because a lot of people like to relax on a vacation for a few days, which means yes, they would like to lounge around in a 4-star hotel rather than get eaten alive by mosquitos on a river.
I get what you are saying, and that's my preference as well. But not everyone has the time and energy to "experience" another country. For most people, you head to a destination, hit the highlights, stay in a nice hotel/resort, and you head back home.
Geenan, you are missing the secret point of the article. What I get out of cited bit is that the author is also a lover of Viet Nam and he doesn't want it overcrowded with throngs of tourists so he wrote about all the uncool pricey places to go. See? He's on your side.
Popeye_Card wrote:I get what you are saying, and that's my preference as well. But not everyone has the time and energy to "experience" another country. For most people, you head to a destination, hit the highlights, stay in a nice hotel/resort, and you head back home.
I know, that's fine. Boring, but fine. That's a vacation. Lay around and rest up in the sun somewhere.
Popeye_Card wrote:I get what you are saying, and that's my preference as well. But not everyone has the time and energy to "experience" another country. For most people, you head to a destination, hit the highlights, stay in a nice hotel/resort, and you head back home.
I know, that's fine. Boring, but fine. That's a vacation. Lay around and rest up in the sun somewhere.
Traveling is completely different from vacation.
The thing is, the NY Times doesn't have a "vacations" section.
I'd personally love to travel as you describe it. But I currently get 2 weeks of vacation a year. Half of that is eaten up by random vacation days to do this and that, and a couple days around xmas. That leaves about a week to go somewhere, if I'm lucky. I'm certainly not one to lounge around on vacation, but I can't say that I truly experience many places either. I'm lucky if I can get one decent backpacking trek in at one national park/forest. With the thousands upon thousands of miles of trails in this country, that doesn't seem like much.
I'm certainly not alone among Americans. Married folk with children are even more strapped for vacation days than I am. And some with high-stress jobs just want to go someplace and relax. Maybe that's boring, but that's life for them.
Popeye_Card wrote:I get what you are saying, and that's my preference as well. But not everyone has the time and energy to "experience" another country. For most people, you head to a destination, hit the highlights, stay in a nice hotel/resort, and you head back home.
I know, that's fine. Boring, but fine. That's a vacation. Lay around and rest up in the sun somewhere.
Traveling is completely different from vacation.
The thing is, the NY Times doesn't have a "vacations" section.
I'd personally love to travel as you describe it. But I currently get 2 weeks of vacation a year. Half of that is eaten up by random vacation days to do this and that, and a couple days around xmas. That leaves about a week to go somewhere, if I'm lucky. I'm certainly not one to lounge around on vacation, but I can't say that I truly experience many places either. I'm lucky if I can get one decent backpacking trek in at one national park/forest. With the thousands upon thousands of miles of trails in this country, that doesn't seem like much.
I'm certainly not alone among Americans. Married folk with children are even more strapped for vacation days than I am. And some with high-stress jobs just want to go someplace and relax. Maybe that's boring, but that's life for them.
I know, and it's better to go somewhere than nowhere. I feel so incredibly lucky to have been able to travel in the way that I did. I've never appreciated anything more than I appreciated those 4 months.
However, it's very easy to make excuses for not traveling. Obviously if you have kids you can't really do it. But I met so many people who were working their away around doing odd jobs here and there to finance it, or who had quit their jobs, or taken unpaid leave, etc. My path towards traveling for an extended time was quite fortuitous. I had it easy. I really admired the people who had taken much greater risk to make it happen.
The wife and I took 3 months after she got laid off in Austin (we knew it was coming) and went to Europe with the money we had saved up for a house. Many times I wish we had that money, but I know we'd never be able to do that sort of thing again after we had kids. We had a great time.
Focusing primarily on her introductory paragraph and exploring a NY Times style attitude I saw all too often:
The charm of traveling through SE Asia, IMO, is flying by the seat of your pants and spending a dollar a dream.
I rode into Laos (after being promised a tour bus), on a sack of sugar in the back of the smokiest, sure to break down any second bus you could imagine practically straddling a drunk passed-out local. Then this guy's little monkey got away from him and wreaked havoc and urine all over the bus.
While I never really want to take a ride like that again, I got a chance to catch a sliver of a glimpse of how they live in Laos, and I certainly saw more of the country than this lady. If she wants to complain about 'the circuit' maybe she should go to places where tourists don't go. If she really wants to discover anything, maybe she could wander off the path a little.
The most amazing things I did in Vietnam were traveling with my Vietnamese friends to their hometowns. I felt like Jesus walking around those little jungle towns, because all the locals surrounded me having probably never been so close to a white person. And I felt I made a stronger connection with the people and the culture outside of the big cities--I certainly gained some perspective. For dinner we fished for shrimp, killed one of the chickens and picked fruit out of the garden.
I hope I don't sound self-righteous or boastful, and having lived in Asia for 18 months I can understand some complaining. But if this lady was truly looking for an authentic experience she didn't try very hard (though she probably brags to her friends about how 'in touch' she is with the people of Laos), so to hear her complain about the throngs just says to me that she failed. And the fact that she is complaining about the throngs is almost certainly more than a bit ironic.
Being adventurous is a term relative to the individual, I know. But the thing is, you can have the kind of experience you want in SE Asia no matter what kind of experience you want.
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