It seems that every traveler laments the discovery by other travelers of a favorite destination: Alex Garland’s The Beach made millions on the story of a fictional tribe of backpackers disillusioned with the influx of travelers to Thailand’s once-pristine islands, and I think it was so successful precisely because many of us understand the desire to witness cultural authenticity. This theme is omnipresent in travel-writing, and I often come across travel articles written by middle-aged travelers who remember a place the way it “once” was, and who sadly recount their most recent visit, which is sure to be filled with banana-pancake stands and 7-Elevens.
I came across one such article this morning, by a writer named Denis D. Gray who discusses with disappointment the influx of tourists to once-rugged Asian destinations. He remembers Luang Prabang as is was in 1974. Now, he writes, the peaceful, intact culture he witnessed has been overrun by “guesthouses, Internet cafes and pizza parlors. There are fewer monks because the newcomers no longer support the monasteries.” Like Garland, he damns Lonely Planet’s Joe Cummings to an imaginary hell for exposing Thailand’s once “exotic” Pai. And he criticizes the massive increase of tourists to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, about which he wrote in his journal in 1980: “Siem Reap may be one of the few spots that still clings to the remnants of the old Cambodia, before the war, before the slaughter.”
While Gray’s article does infuse the sense of loss anyone might feel as places change, he doesn’t offer any solutions to the problems he so sadly observes.
I’m as guilty as Gray in my search for an authentic cultural experience and in my hopelessness at irreversible changes and losses. But unlike Gray, I recognize my own contribution to these changes. As travelers, we’re all voyeurs, and we all contribute to the problems Gray points out. Even Gray himself.