Backpacker as Massive Cliche; Tourism as Destruction
I have to say that Java is not growing on me. I did have a pretty nice dinner tonight- chicken with coconut sauce- and tried an avocado and chocolate shake, which was kind of terrible, but fun. If a drink can be fun.
The problems we're having here, I think, lie fundamentally in the concept of tourism. I want so badly not to be just another tourist, milling around like a zombie between batik stores, famous monuments, and restaurants. But it seems as if in places like this, as an outsider, you almost have no choice. The place itself assumes that you want to be the zombie-tourist, as most do, and when you show up with a guidebook and a camera, it only gets worse. I ask: don't they see that I'm not merely taking snapshots, that I am putting effort into composition, seeking out details, the look and feel of the city and not portraits of the "attractions" which have been photographed already so many times!? Okay, so maybe I do photograph the obvious things too, out of some feeling of touristic obligation, but I always attempt to insert an ironic touch in those cases. Like that time that I photographed Aubrie and Michelle in front of the Mona Lisa and framed it so that half of the painting was blocked!....
Here I'd like to note that although the above is written with sarcasm, it's actually a flimsy cover for the fact that I actually think those things. Then again, it's also an indicator of my own distrust (mistrust?) of those feelings, they being somewhat pretentious and arrogant. Okay, I'll stop.
Getting back to the topic of tourism....I think the first major problem with a place that you would want to go to and see is that the place is most likely very much aware of it. And so, you'll tend to have an experience there much like ours when we ventured out into Yogya today- you'll be approached by dozens of people wanting to make money off of you, ranging from the yelling of "transport!" by every third person, to the people who want to know where you're from, where you're going, and would you like any help with getting to the water palace?? and who inevitably isn't just someone looking to help, but in fact a schemer, a seller, a man who wants your money. And the effect of this on us is that we become increasingly callous, increasingly annoyed, ot the point that we trust no one, have no choice but to ignore the people who ask us questions. Furthermore, having had every single person whose services we have used (taxis, etc) try at every turn to overcharge us, rip us off, trick us and even intimidate us, all to get as much money as possible from us, we feel angry, and bitter, and expect the worst. It's easy to see the sort of dynamic this leads to. It's no good for both sides. I don't know whether to blame myself, Indonesia, tourism, economic imbalance...perhaps it's all of those.
The second major problem inherent in tourism is that all those sites that you find yourself wanting to see are most often, if not overcrowded with tourists while you're there, so over-seen, over-photographed, and over-developed-for-the-purposes-of-being-seen that they are rendered, quite ironically, unseeable. All the tourists before and all those to come, all the images made of and guides written about the place, have devalued it to the point of invisibility. You will see the Tourist's Water Castle, and it will be a faint shadow of its actual self, merely a physical likeness of whatever it originally was.
The logical course to follow, therefore, is to go off the beaten path, but this is much easier said than done. What happens if 98% of paths are beaten? Or even 100%?
An Optimistic Note:
Most of what I enjoy about being in a place is just being there, eating there, sleeping there, seeing little things that I would not see at home, and this is still possible wherever I happen to be. So at least that's good.
In Other News:
Yogyakarta is hot, and ugly. There's a bird market here that's sad- many beautiful birds, even some rabbits and rodents, looking unhappy in small cages.
Why is it that people drive worse and worse the closer you they are to the equator? It's unreal. The traffic here (and everywhere else in Indonesia) is terrible, and the streets are uncrossable. No one will let you cross. The cars and motorbikes continue in a steady stream all day, and you have no choice but to step in front of them and hope they slow down. Stopping is out of the question. Where do people pick up such bad manners?
Speaking of manners- a crazy man with no teeth approached us today (while waiting to cross a street, no less) and first pointed at Aubrie, laughed wildly, then noticed me, darted my way as I simultaneously started to flee, and flailed his arms so as to slap me, before a policeman noticed and blew his whistle, at which point it was his turn to flee, jumping on a moving bus (a fairly standard maneuver, so you shouldn't be impressed.)
Staying at a nice place now, a bit too much money for us at 120,000 Rp a night (about 13 dollars, or 6.50 each) but completely worth it. It has a non-rotting bathroom and even hot water sometimes. The room itself is beautiful, with a very colonial feel. We aren't sure when we'll leave for Jakarta.
The problems we're having here, I think, lie fundamentally in the concept of tourism. I want so badly not to be just another tourist, milling around like a zombie between batik stores, famous monuments, and restaurants. But it seems as if in places like this, as an outsider, you almost have no choice. The place itself assumes that you want to be the zombie-tourist, as most do, and when you show up with a guidebook and a camera, it only gets worse. I ask: don't they see that I'm not merely taking snapshots, that I am putting effort into composition, seeking out details, the look and feel of the city and not portraits of the "attractions" which have been photographed already so many times!? Okay, so maybe I do photograph the obvious things too, out of some feeling of touristic obligation, but I always attempt to insert an ironic touch in those cases. Like that time that I photographed Aubrie and Michelle in front of the Mona Lisa and framed it so that half of the painting was blocked!....
Here I'd like to note that although the above is written with sarcasm, it's actually a flimsy cover for the fact that I actually think those things. Then again, it's also an indicator of my own distrust (mistrust?) of those feelings, they being somewhat pretentious and arrogant. Okay, I'll stop.
Getting back to the topic of tourism....I think the first major problem with a place that you would want to go to and see is that the place is most likely very much aware of it. And so, you'll tend to have an experience there much like ours when we ventured out into Yogya today- you'll be approached by dozens of people wanting to make money off of you, ranging from the yelling of "transport!" by every third person, to the people who want to know where you're from, where you're going, and would you like any help with getting to the water palace?? and who inevitably isn't just someone looking to help, but in fact a schemer, a seller, a man who wants your money. And the effect of this on us is that we become increasingly callous, increasingly annoyed, ot the point that we trust no one, have no choice but to ignore the people who ask us questions. Furthermore, having had every single person whose services we have used (taxis, etc) try at every turn to overcharge us, rip us off, trick us and even intimidate us, all to get as much money as possible from us, we feel angry, and bitter, and expect the worst. It's easy to see the sort of dynamic this leads to. It's no good for both sides. I don't know whether to blame myself, Indonesia, tourism, economic imbalance...perhaps it's all of those.
The second major problem inherent in tourism is that all those sites that you find yourself wanting to see are most often, if not overcrowded with tourists while you're there, so over-seen, over-photographed, and over-developed-for-the-purposes-of-being-seen that they are rendered, quite ironically, unseeable. All the tourists before and all those to come, all the images made of and guides written about the place, have devalued it to the point of invisibility. You will see the Tourist's Water Castle, and it will be a faint shadow of its actual self, merely a physical likeness of whatever it originally was.
The logical course to follow, therefore, is to go off the beaten path, but this is much easier said than done. What happens if 98% of paths are beaten? Or even 100%?
An Optimistic Note:
Most of what I enjoy about being in a place is just being there, eating there, sleeping there, seeing little things that I would not see at home, and this is still possible wherever I happen to be. So at least that's good.
In Other News:
Yogyakarta is hot, and ugly. There's a bird market here that's sad- many beautiful birds, even some rabbits and rodents, looking unhappy in small cages.
Why is it that people drive worse and worse the closer you they are to the equator? It's unreal. The traffic here (and everywhere else in Indonesia) is terrible, and the streets are uncrossable. No one will let you cross. The cars and motorbikes continue in a steady stream all day, and you have no choice but to step in front of them and hope they slow down. Stopping is out of the question. Where do people pick up such bad manners?
Speaking of manners- a crazy man with no teeth approached us today (while waiting to cross a street, no less) and first pointed at Aubrie, laughed wildly, then noticed me, darted my way as I simultaneously started to flee, and flailed his arms so as to slap me, before a policeman noticed and blew his whistle, at which point it was his turn to flee, jumping on a moving bus (a fairly standard maneuver, so you shouldn't be impressed.)
Staying at a nice place now, a bit too much money for us at 120,000 Rp a night (about 13 dollars, or 6.50 each) but completely worth it. It has a non-rotting bathroom and even hot water sometimes. The room itself is beautiful, with a very colonial feel. We aren't sure when we'll leave for Jakarta.
posted by Gabriel Leigh at 9:16 PM
7 Comments:
Might I suggest that your are perpetuating yourselves as "tourists" by the nature of the fact that you are standing outside of their systems and practices and observing and commenting. I don't know if your itinerary will allow for this but it might be interesting to find a little place off the beaten track and settle in for awhile. Be there enough days that the days are no longer numbered. Become a local instead of an imposter. I can't believe the place you stayed in Bali was Kuta - I must've been in a prolonged disassociated state when you were planning. As an exercise, try to remove everything you know and view their world from the inside out. Make yourselves the subjects of an sociological study - can you strip away everything you know and have been? Ball-busting and loving, as usual. Michelle (NY Mom - Not Biological One)
I am not anonymous. I am Senor Kaplan and I'm posting as such. It's a good thing you both love lizards. But did you have to travel so far for rotting bathrooms when you had your own rotting bathroom for so long in your 7th street apartment? Oh wait, that was the entranceway that was rotting and leaking asbestos. The bathroom was merely frozen. No risk of that where you are, I suppose. Did you get that toothless slapper's e-mail address? I want to keep in touch with him. He sounds like an interesting fellow. So, it wasn't quite clear how your confrontation with that cab driver ended, the one who wanted you to pay 40,000,000 quid instead of the agreed-upon 20,000,000. I mean, I think I understand what basically happened. You killed him. But I wasn't sure if Aubrie assisted in the murder or just kept lookout. I'm guessing assisted. And then you drove his cab to the train. That much was clear. But why didn't you just drive the whole way, since you had his car? And do you have it still? Nextly, I don't agree with NY Michelle. I think you should zip through these places as fast as you possibly can without fear of being an ostentatious tourist. Just cover as much ground as inhumanly possible. The more places you can mark down and say that you've been the cooler you will seem to the non-itinerant hermits you've left behind. And take as many pictures (and as flamboyantly, for good mesure) as you can. People are going to want proof that you've been where you say you've been. I, especially, am going to require some sort of visual corroboration that there exists a castle made of water. Do they encase the H2O in some sort of lucite? Maybe a diaphanous plastic houses the liquid? Or is the castle below sea level? Maybe in the sea itself? If so, how do you distinguish between the castle's form and the surrounding brine? Do jellyfish float freely through the turrets and towers? Okay, I'm annoying even myself now. I'll leave you with some lines from As You Like It. I saw Sir Peter Hall's production of it at BAM the other night, with his daughter Rebecca as Rosalind. And, despite the glowing reviews, she was, at best, the weak link in a mostly spectacular cast. At worst, some of her line readings were daggers to my ears and her nervous, fake naturalism chided and vexed me to my limits. In any event, here's a conglomeration on travel: "O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits! ... I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary. ... I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat: therefore, courage, good Aubrie (I mean Aliena). ... Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content." Love, Randy
Perhaps the huge backpacks give everyone the illusion you are tourists.Have you had enough fun yet Aubrie?
There is no way to bridge the chasm between the affluent (however illusory) Western tourist and the impoverished inhabitants of third world countries, particularly when we add the ingredient of religious myopia, which turns entire nations into God-hungry criminals. Blending in is not an option, and who would want to, anyway?
Think of a creative, postmodern artifact with an intact brain walking into a room full of Born Again Christians. What would be his or her chances of not being singled out and subsequently preyed (prayed?) upon?
Have to agree with R on this one over M (non-biological) Enjoy your tourist status, but strive for invisibility in the process.
love/lb-toad
To respond a bit, feeling somewhat defensive:
We stayed in Kuta because it was very near the airport and had some of the cheapest accomodation. The idea was that we would be getting away from the tourist hordes when we moved on from there, so it was allowable for the first few days.
I'm pretty firmly of the belief that unless you have a friend who lives in the place you're visiting, or you go to live there yourself, you have no option but to be an outsider and be looked upon and treated as one by those you come across. Of course, there are different ways to be and act in a place, so that even as an outsider, you can have better and fuller experiences, but there's a limit to how much you can blend in. I think. As far as I was aware I arrived here with a completely open mind, ready to observe but not be critical and/or superior. Michelle, you seem to suggest that we came here with the mindset to start commenting and looking down upon the place, thereby maintaining and enhancing our separateness, and that this is what's hampering us in the quest not to be the typical tourist. This is what I'm responding to here, so let me know if that's incorrect.
dear a & g:
damned if it ain't all good and filled with the one dharma.
not to obfuscate, mind you; just weighing in lightly,
in passing, in lieu thereof....
john e.
Perhaps echoing other comments here, just a thought: on the "overcharging" thing, are you (shouldn't you be) thinking about it in $ terms, in the light of the inequalities in wealth between the US and your host countries (and the inequalities in wealth in the societies in which you are staying)? It's probably a better way of thinking about it that thinking of it in local or % terms. If you are being overcharged (say) $3 - even if this is a 100% mark up on the "official" price, (a) it isn't very much and (b) think of the difference that might make to the wealth of someone whose annual income is the price of a meal in a Manhattan restaurant. It always pissed me off that wealthy tourists (I mean, really wealthy) insist on bartering things down from $5 to $3, as if it made the slightest difference to them.
I'd be interested in your take on the countries that is less introspective and a reaction to your immediate experience and more about difference and explanation - like the driving thing. Where does this come from: does it have a root in fatalist religions and an acceptance (due to low life expectancy and the lack of anything much of a support network for the elderly) of early and sudden death? Are there tacit rules that you, as an outsider, don't fully perceive. The impact of tourism is interesting too - as a debasing influence on social behaviour, eroding traditional social norms of welcome and sustenance.
Safe journeys, interesting events ... take care, Colin
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