As a culture starts to produce wealth for it's middle class, it's inevitable that they go out and have a look at the world.. it's as natural as any curiosity. It's also natural that the world, especially the tourism workers of the world, pick up on their unique behaviors and make fun of it.... When I was a kid, it was the Japanese, and we loved how they acted so polite, amazed, and pointed a camera, if not two, at absolutely everything! It was a joke in the city I grew up in that you had to watch out for them otherwise you would run them over because they were so stunned they would be oblivious to their surroundings.. it was hard not to like them, it was hard not to make fun of them... Americans had their era.. it's part of where the nickname Ugly Americans came from... we had a heyday, and our middle class suddenly wanted to see Paris and all the other stuff we had heard about, read about, and seen at the pictures and on the Television... Paris didn't appreciate it, although of course they took our money...
This is not to be confused with great migrations for work, like the Polish to England, the Moldavian to anywhere, The Filipinos to the Middle East, and the Mexicans to the US.. that's a whole other thing.. and I am not talking about places where people go for second homes, like the English to Spain, Midwesterners to the west coast of Florida, or Italians to Croatia. I'm talking about what language the guy complaining at the front desk is most likely to be speaking right now.. The latest are the Chinese, and they re crating quite a stir. There are 23 million Chinese a year visiting Hong Kong alone, and there is even a trend to have their kids there for legal reasons... the Hong Kongers have picked up on it and even have a funny nickname for the Chinese guys who recently made a lot of money and dress head to toe in gaudy designer fashions ( if you bump into one, you will never forget it.. they look like all the colors of the rainbow).. Hoe Hoes... I remember when the Russians were doing the same things just 10 or 20 years ago.. taking over France and buying everything that wasn't tied down.
Here is a listing of tourist crushes and their times..
The English The Victorian Era
The Ugly Americans 50's 60's (and to present, but we have cleaned up our rep a bit since the bad old days..
The Japanese 1980's
The Argentines prior to 1998
The Koreans 90's and 00's
The Taiwanese 90's and 00's
The Russians mid 90's
The Chinese 2012 to present
The Indians 2016-?
Observations on Travel: A Blog about Problems, Politics, People, Sociology, and Opportunity in Travel
Friday, February 14
The Ghettoization of Leisure, creation of a Parasite Class, and why amazing places Jump the Shark
Follow if you will the milestones of a nice place turning into a tourist shit hole..
Modern people today often live isolated lives of quiet desperation, as the saying goes... they work towards unobtainable goals of wealth, prosperity and family achievement. The majority of modern educated people in the early 21st century live in places that are convenient to the aggregation of wealth, not aesthetic pleasure, and if aesthetic pleasure is there, it's often seen more as a calculation of home value than something to actually enjoy. They might work to purchase Aesthetics, the assumption being that it must be earned, but even if they choose a place to live they weren't born, it is usually a place where they can utilize their skills to maximize their income or some notion of a balanced lifestyle of career and pleasure that is still based on some unexamined concepts of pleasure. Anyhow, they live in a place they don't usually enjoy completely they don't find relaxing because of the pace of life they set, or because it was never home in the first place, or because they are taught that leaving places of comfort makes you sophisticated or broadens you, or because they are taught to assume that where they are isn't as good as where they could be, so they begin to resent it, and it usually has a difficult winter as most more economically and culturally sophisticated places do. In other words, there is some climate challenge that has led people to band together in cooperation, that made the culture sophisticated and gave it buying power, but it doesn't necessarily have recreational charm, or charm that they would admit, because it's sophisticated to take where you live for granted, to underestimate it (the French drive this insecurity into us! it's no Paris... I'll be honest with you.. Paris sucks.. stay home and find what's nice there..). To find that charm, they work had to acquire capitol to reward themselves for being good, like a pat on the back for your first potty trained dump, Freud would say, to use the wealth of transportation options available to them to travel to places that are considered to be a relief from their self imposed life of aggregating wealth..
This is where our victim steps in.. the poor unspoiled place with some unique attribute that appeals to these bedraggled consumers who need simple reasoning to penetrate their marketing addled minds. It usually involves a change in weather, a pleasurable activity, like boating, fishing, sight seeing or sitting n the beach, and a destination that solicits them with marketing, some geographic uniqueness, and infrastructure to make them feel at home, even when they are trying to escape home... this is where the idiocy really starts.
The place has some redeeming quality that explorers find charming.. a ruin, a beach, a superlative mountain or lake... the tip of a peninsula that promises remoteness, escape, a nice harbor... The explorers are usually canny people used to going places off the beaten track, and they have low commitment to their place of origin.. the might come for a job, just exploring, some military deployment or charity work, or maybe they are a pilot or someone else who has a chance to see things from a unique perspective to spot value in places.
The explorer makes a commitment to a place, and becomes like the first molecule in a long chain of destruction.. the dust in a raindrop, sorry to say... They move in, and almost inevitably, they want to change something to make life more convenient like where they live.. they make a hotel, or just a hostel or guest house.. they become a leader and a point of entry for reliable information for other foreigners seeking to 'know what's going on' and not be ripped off, not be alone, and not get sick, even though they came here to get away from it. So this person from elsewhere exists to be a bridge, between their social isolation in this new unspoilt culture that seemingly doesn't know how to run it's self properly, because they haven't answered certain basic developmental questions, and the visitor, which the explorer was before, so they have empathy, which the locals are assumed to lack because they are unconsciously adapted to the challenges of the place.
Well, the entrepreneurial types come in.. that explorer has proven the place is safe, and the entrepreneurial types come in and in their munificence, start turning that previously unspoilt place into a hybrid of the world the travelers come from and what it was (if you have heard of it, assume it is already fucked..), while selling it without admitting the impact they are having. They come with the self righteousness of the enlightened, and they try to 'train' the locals to 'handle' the tourists that they are soliciting to come and introducing to the area and culture for their own profit... thus begins the race to mediocrity.. because the place looses it's old sense of identity, and their value system is undermined by the obvious proof that the outside influences solve basic problems better, but that they are here seeking something that must be of great value, therefore we as the hosts must have something of great value that we can now exploit to obtain the conveniences that they bring. Just look at them, the first tourists tend to be these beautiful glamorous looking Europeans with leisure minded charm, and they exude confidence that most people in former backwaters can't help but be envious of.. I must have what they come from. The vampire class is born, the parasites, and the longer they make easy money, the worse a place gets... the hustle begins...
The Parasites are people who figure out they can make money, often times cloaked in 'potecting a palce' or alleviating poverty', but often times just providing services or goods to outsiders who take neither the time nor have the boldness to test the true price of things in a new place.. they come, they overpay, and that becomes 'the tourist price'.. two classes develop, those who exploit this for capital gain, and those who continue their old way o life, and the ones who exploit climb to the top by way of possessing capital, and the more a place westernizes, the more it stratifies, the more important that becomes.. now they control medicine, and have cars, and things that were simply a fact of life before become tragedies to both them and the more emotional of their visitors... these visitors create maternal attachments to their hosts, and further conflict them with descriptions of their 'poverty' and 'need', muddying the waters for those who just want to arrive and exchange services and goods for money or barter in the way it has been done for centuries.. there start to be perceptions of unwritten obligations, and so many cultures are attracted that it becomes a tangled mass of confusion with the parasites focusing on providing their services for whomever is most likely to pay, and denying them to those who refuse to pay... in some places they tilt the deck and cartel... you aren't allowed to provide your own transportation, cook your own meals... you have to go through 'guides' or official restaurants.. people try to 'save' the situation, and merely perpetuate it or make it worse...
Eventually a place jumps the shark.. the parasite class becomes so prevalent that the whole experience of the place is lost in a sea of set rate transactions that benefit the parasite class over the traveler... the neophytes come because by now the place has an awesome reputation for convenience, for lawlessness... there becomes a class of young hustlers who will get you any drug or delight you want.. there is no control because money has long replaced lifestyle as the ideal of the place.. ever since that first explorer started to invite more of his kind to 'enjoy' what used to just be enjoyed as part of life', before it was gormandized...
It jumps the shark when greed becomes all pervasive.. when the attempts to keep up with the pace of development become constricted by incompetence and corruption due to the locals never having had the chance to adapt in and of their own to this new burden of visitation.. they were picked not because they were the vanguard of a new organization and civilization, but because they were anything but, and what was quaint and cute before becomes a sad mess.. paradise lost...Florida, Cancun, Acapulco, Phuket, Siem Reap, Santa Marta Colombia... and those who create the problem don't care because they will return after days or a week to their place of aggregation, and it ain't their problem, because they came to this ghetto 'just to have fun', and aren't there to create justice, order, or environmental harmony...
When does it jump the shark... well, when you have a Bob Marley themed bar, in a place that couldn't be further from Jamaica, and the locals start to pretend they are a Rasta.. that's a good hint that things are good now, but gonna suck soon.. they hit on the hippie girls coming to find themselves from the repressive northern European cultures, and they want a piece of brown skin to exemplify some passage to womanhood.. they are happy to trade their fiat for some good times and a bit of a memory blur..
by the time you have a zip line, you are fucked.. there is no charm left.. all that was in and of it's self, little roads leading down to a beach, are likely now traffic choked and where kids used to play in the surf, they are now looking for the next snorkel tour victim so they can get another whiff of meth tonight.. compared to the life they were promised before the first tourists showed up, this is an easy life, but it's not a lovable one.. the money doesn't go where it might have... it's going going gone.. what attracted us was the very lack of structure, and now all there is is the structure that the greedy and the self righteous agreed upon was the only way to handle the influx.. you are mad to not be doing activities, and the time of charm has come and gone... the rules for this ghetto of leisure say to look for what is good by your cultural standards, don't question much, and go home before it would dawn on you how horrible this place has become, how dependent they all are on you instead of just them anymore, like they were for thousands of years before you arrived perhaps, and what a tragedy it all is..
Modern people today often live isolated lives of quiet desperation, as the saying goes... they work towards unobtainable goals of wealth, prosperity and family achievement. The majority of modern educated people in the early 21st century live in places that are convenient to the aggregation of wealth, not aesthetic pleasure, and if aesthetic pleasure is there, it's often seen more as a calculation of home value than something to actually enjoy. They might work to purchase Aesthetics, the assumption being that it must be earned, but even if they choose a place to live they weren't born, it is usually a place where they can utilize their skills to maximize their income or some notion of a balanced lifestyle of career and pleasure that is still based on some unexamined concepts of pleasure. Anyhow, they live in a place they don't usually enjoy completely they don't find relaxing because of the pace of life they set, or because it was never home in the first place, or because they are taught that leaving places of comfort makes you sophisticated or broadens you, or because they are taught to assume that where they are isn't as good as where they could be, so they begin to resent it, and it usually has a difficult winter as most more economically and culturally sophisticated places do. In other words, there is some climate challenge that has led people to band together in cooperation, that made the culture sophisticated and gave it buying power, but it doesn't necessarily have recreational charm, or charm that they would admit, because it's sophisticated to take where you live for granted, to underestimate it (the French drive this insecurity into us! it's no Paris... I'll be honest with you.. Paris sucks.. stay home and find what's nice there..). To find that charm, they work had to acquire capitol to reward themselves for being good, like a pat on the back for your first potty trained dump, Freud would say, to use the wealth of transportation options available to them to travel to places that are considered to be a relief from their self imposed life of aggregating wealth..
This is where our victim steps in.. the poor unspoiled place with some unique attribute that appeals to these bedraggled consumers who need simple reasoning to penetrate their marketing addled minds. It usually involves a change in weather, a pleasurable activity, like boating, fishing, sight seeing or sitting n the beach, and a destination that solicits them with marketing, some geographic uniqueness, and infrastructure to make them feel at home, even when they are trying to escape home... this is where the idiocy really starts.
The place has some redeeming quality that explorers find charming.. a ruin, a beach, a superlative mountain or lake... the tip of a peninsula that promises remoteness, escape, a nice harbor... The explorers are usually canny people used to going places off the beaten track, and they have low commitment to their place of origin.. the might come for a job, just exploring, some military deployment or charity work, or maybe they are a pilot or someone else who has a chance to see things from a unique perspective to spot value in places.
The explorer makes a commitment to a place, and becomes like the first molecule in a long chain of destruction.. the dust in a raindrop, sorry to say... They move in, and almost inevitably, they want to change something to make life more convenient like where they live.. they make a hotel, or just a hostel or guest house.. they become a leader and a point of entry for reliable information for other foreigners seeking to 'know what's going on' and not be ripped off, not be alone, and not get sick, even though they came here to get away from it. So this person from elsewhere exists to be a bridge, between their social isolation in this new unspoilt culture that seemingly doesn't know how to run it's self properly, because they haven't answered certain basic developmental questions, and the visitor, which the explorer was before, so they have empathy, which the locals are assumed to lack because they are unconsciously adapted to the challenges of the place.
Well, the entrepreneurial types come in.. that explorer has proven the place is safe, and the entrepreneurial types come in and in their munificence, start turning that previously unspoilt place into a hybrid of the world the travelers come from and what it was (if you have heard of it, assume it is already fucked..), while selling it without admitting the impact they are having. They come with the self righteousness of the enlightened, and they try to 'train' the locals to 'handle' the tourists that they are soliciting to come and introducing to the area and culture for their own profit... thus begins the race to mediocrity.. because the place looses it's old sense of identity, and their value system is undermined by the obvious proof that the outside influences solve basic problems better, but that they are here seeking something that must be of great value, therefore we as the hosts must have something of great value that we can now exploit to obtain the conveniences that they bring. Just look at them, the first tourists tend to be these beautiful glamorous looking Europeans with leisure minded charm, and they exude confidence that most people in former backwaters can't help but be envious of.. I must have what they come from. The vampire class is born, the parasites, and the longer they make easy money, the worse a place gets... the hustle begins...
The Parasites are people who figure out they can make money, often times cloaked in 'potecting a palce' or alleviating poverty', but often times just providing services or goods to outsiders who take neither the time nor have the boldness to test the true price of things in a new place.. they come, they overpay, and that becomes 'the tourist price'.. two classes develop, those who exploit this for capital gain, and those who continue their old way o life, and the ones who exploit climb to the top by way of possessing capital, and the more a place westernizes, the more it stratifies, the more important that becomes.. now they control medicine, and have cars, and things that were simply a fact of life before become tragedies to both them and the more emotional of their visitors... these visitors create maternal attachments to their hosts, and further conflict them with descriptions of their 'poverty' and 'need', muddying the waters for those who just want to arrive and exchange services and goods for money or barter in the way it has been done for centuries.. there start to be perceptions of unwritten obligations, and so many cultures are attracted that it becomes a tangled mass of confusion with the parasites focusing on providing their services for whomever is most likely to pay, and denying them to those who refuse to pay... in some places they tilt the deck and cartel... you aren't allowed to provide your own transportation, cook your own meals... you have to go through 'guides' or official restaurants.. people try to 'save' the situation, and merely perpetuate it or make it worse...
Eventually a place jumps the shark.. the parasite class becomes so prevalent that the whole experience of the place is lost in a sea of set rate transactions that benefit the parasite class over the traveler... the neophytes come because by now the place has an awesome reputation for convenience, for lawlessness... there becomes a class of young hustlers who will get you any drug or delight you want.. there is no control because money has long replaced lifestyle as the ideal of the place.. ever since that first explorer started to invite more of his kind to 'enjoy' what used to just be enjoyed as part of life', before it was gormandized...
It jumps the shark when greed becomes all pervasive.. when the attempts to keep up with the pace of development become constricted by incompetence and corruption due to the locals never having had the chance to adapt in and of their own to this new burden of visitation.. they were picked not because they were the vanguard of a new organization and civilization, but because they were anything but, and what was quaint and cute before becomes a sad mess.. paradise lost...Florida, Cancun, Acapulco, Phuket, Siem Reap, Santa Marta Colombia... and those who create the problem don't care because they will return after days or a week to their place of aggregation, and it ain't their problem, because they came to this ghetto 'just to have fun', and aren't there to create justice, order, or environmental harmony...
When does it jump the shark... well, when you have a Bob Marley themed bar, in a place that couldn't be further from Jamaica, and the locals start to pretend they are a Rasta.. that's a good hint that things are good now, but gonna suck soon.. they hit on the hippie girls coming to find themselves from the repressive northern European cultures, and they want a piece of brown skin to exemplify some passage to womanhood.. they are happy to trade their fiat for some good times and a bit of a memory blur..
by the time you have a zip line, you are fucked.. there is no charm left.. all that was in and of it's self, little roads leading down to a beach, are likely now traffic choked and where kids used to play in the surf, they are now looking for the next snorkel tour victim so they can get another whiff of meth tonight.. compared to the life they were promised before the first tourists showed up, this is an easy life, but it's not a lovable one.. the money doesn't go where it might have... it's going going gone.. what attracted us was the very lack of structure, and now all there is is the structure that the greedy and the self righteous agreed upon was the only way to handle the influx.. you are mad to not be doing activities, and the time of charm has come and gone... the rules for this ghetto of leisure say to look for what is good by your cultural standards, don't question much, and go home before it would dawn on you how horrible this place has become, how dependent they all are on you instead of just them anymore, like they were for thousands of years before you arrived perhaps, and what a tragedy it all is..
Sunday, January 12
The Environmental State of Thailand
There is something about it... Thailand is loosing it's charm... the old bones might still be there, and the people might still be saccharine sweet, but it's loosing it's je ne se qua, and the major reason seems to be an endless environmental degradation with no leadership attempting to remedy the problem beyond little isolated projects. Thailand is becoming a 2nd world dump with a smile...
Maybe it's just these awkward teenage years of development... everyone has just enough Baht now to buy a truck (Thaksin helped that!), buy a scooter, and move past the banana leaf to the luxuries of plastic.. it's in that sad 15 dollar a day range of income where countries like this and Mexico seem to loose their soul to bad habits and self indulgent and small minded living patterns: lots of meat, lots of plastic, lots of driving, lots of environmental abuse, lot's of extraction, and lots of media, but it's not just the small guys, doing their thing, that are a problem.. the big guys are either corrupt or not seeing the degradation that's really happening to the country in all the turmoil being rowed up over and over again by the two parties. I have been told that the Democrats are actually good at thoughtful debate and administration, but their years of neglect of the farmer have left them out of power now for like a decade, and the other side, the Red Shirts may be corrupt, but they did jam in a Metro system and light rail to the Airport that helped Bangkok come back to almost livable, so they seem to like big lucrative projects if it helps mother earth an iota, but the focus on the details of a ecologically harmonious lifestyle that used to mark these rice growing countries are going going gone, and have been headed that way for a while it seems..
Here is what I see occurring.
Start with the big picture... the Satellite Map:
When you look at Thailand, there is something I learned that Ecologists call the Shadow of Thailand.. you can see the borders of Thailand on a satellite photo because the Thai side is inevitably deforested compared to it's neighbors.. the official numbers claim something in the 30% range, but that's not close to the real deal... a source told me that the National Forestry Administration, which is backwards and corrupt according to him, counts tree plantains for things like rubber and palm oil as part of the percentage of ground cover... which might help when it comes to carbon and reflecting and absorbing the sun, but is by no means true forest and wild habitat.. the number likely stands somewhere in the teens...
Here is some data that takes this complex question for what it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_forest_area
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Thailand.htm
Thailand has created a bunch of national parks, all very nice.. they kind of cow tow to the demands of Tourism, which is one of the largest industries in the Nation, but few of them feel like the cared for and studied ecosystems of Western National Parks. They feel like what a lot of them are... Tourist Attractions.
The last wild land in Thailand comes in two chunks, one big, the other smaller.. it's the western cluster of forests and parks, the Western Complex, that is the last true Wilderness in the Country. It supposedly has a population of about 500 wild tigers.. it's along the Myanmar border, and to some degree, it's for real.
Another Complex of three parks sits on in a set of hills North East of Bangkok. I was surprised to see it once on a flight in from Hong Kong, as the North East part of the Country, along the Mekong River, is the most deforested, and the poorest.. it is starting to get to that Flat, Hot, and Crowded stage that Thomas Friedman tries to make light of. This strip of three parks, The Prachinburi Complex I believe, sadly has a highway running right through it, but supposedly the western and eastern park are well managed and turning into nice forest land... the one in the middle, Thap Lan National Park, leaves something to be desired I was told. The North has it's parks, but they are inextricably linked with the hill tribes that live in them, and there is little primary forest left, just a lot of what was left from bouts of logging slowly starting the process of trying to wipe out signs of the impacts of man, which I once read can take up to 800 years to occur. I went through Lam Non Kok National Park recently, by boat. It's just one of many Thai National Parks, but by western standards,it seemed a park in name only... I saw nothing pristine about it, nice though it was, and although I saw no evidence of recent logging, there were very few old growth trees in my view, and mostly bamboo thicket. I saw wood gathering going on, and even grazing. It .. it seemed like it had been named a park, but it was really just a hill tribe area, and that logging had already occurred, if not by the English a century ago, by the Thai more recently, but perhaps not int he last ten years. This is anecdotal, but as I pass areas set aside as parks in Thailand, I rarely find myself gasping at what must be large beautiful tracts of forest. It feels more like there was nothing left to exploit, and it had a few waterfalls, so why not call it a park.
Doi Tung is one know Success story that describes honestly what might have been the point of departure for so many of these parks, a 160 square kilometer preserve along the Burmese border in Chiang Rai, that the King's mother worked to bring back from the brink of total deforestation brought on by years of opium growing and wood gathering. It was a noble program with many successes, truly, (not just saying this to avoid Leese Majestee Laws!) but there was a miscalculation to plant pines that were likely only indigenous to the top 2% of the land all over it, as the instrument of reforestation. Those of you who know pines know that, like a corrupt government, they don't allow much to grow around them due to acidification caused by the needles, so plans are now afoot to replace or remove the pines, but it has met with roadblocks because there is so much emotion associated with the pines which were a symbol of Doi Tung and northern Thailand's rebound... Luckily the pines have a hard time reproducing in these hotter lower slopes, so often times just fall down during the big winds that bring the monsoon, and slowly the undergrowth and more suited species are returning, and when the row is over, with help from some nobly determined managers who get what is going on finally.
This brings us to the real nut.. the things that bug me in the major cities of Thailand, well, any urban area in Thailand feels like a major city because of how it encompasses you.. you might be 100 feet from a rice paddy, but that horrible modern Thai architecture makes you feel like you are in any slum anywhere, with only the peoples pleasant smiles to remind you you aren't in the Ghettos of Cali or Johannesburg. I once read somewhere from an old Thailand ex-pat hand that if you think you are the first to notice that Modern Thai Architecture Sucks, you aren't because it has sucked since sometime after WWII.. time immemorial.. it might only look so bad because of how beautiful old Thai architecture can be, but that takes us back to deforestation.. that teak doesn't grow on trees you know... well it does, but you usually have to cut them down to get it... but all that bad architecture for me seems like a karmic trade off for where your electricity comes from, not such an insane notion in a Buddhist country. The Thai Grid is somewhere around 90% fossil fueled... a lot of it is natural gas from the Andaman Sea, The Yetagun Gas fields, pumped through a pipeline graciously set up by Myanmar's old dictatorship... some of it I believe comes from newly explored areas in the Gulf of Thailand in joint exploration with Malaysia, but there is a lot of oil being pumped in too. There has been no leadership to change this that I know of... it's one of those big Bangkok corporate mysteries would be my guess. The King put in a bunch of hydroelectric dam's over the years, but they were more to aid irrigation.. the mountains of Thailand tend to rise up from flat valleys, most of the country is just one big river valley and alluvial plane, therefore anyplace you can build a big dam doesn't have a lot of fall.. it can't generate enough height to make a lot of electricity, so I believe it only accounts for like 10%, and I have seen no evidence of any other attempts to tap into other alternative sources for grid power.. seen a bunch of hot springs, but no Geothermal, seen a lot of sun, but no solar panels.
A year or two ago, maybe 2012, there was the first attempt to offer rebates for solar.. it supposedly was a bit botched bureaucratically, with people needing to get industrial zoning permits above a small kilowattage to install panels, but it happened, a nice first step. Thailand is one of those countries where things don't happen organically. In the Shan state of Burma, Solar Electricity and Solar Hot Water Units are everywhere, being trucked down from the Chinese Solar Capital of nearby Kunming. It's a Laisaiz Faire Success story, but in Thailand, everything rises and falls with Politics.. everything is secretly calculated... behind the smile, there is a self benefit calculator ticking away, and nothing is going to happen without government leadership.. no electric scooters, no alternative energies, no solar.. Thai people are pleasant and do what they are told until they are told to do something else.. it's not an innovative place.. the combination of emphasis on Royal tradition and the growing commercialism of the country make independent though and action less and less common. The idea of an autonomous move to greener energies just isn't int he cards here by character... they are all controlled from bankok, and waiting for subsidies..
As an example, I had a Thai buddy who was looking for a product to import. I told him why not buy Solar Hot Water units from China... he laughed and told me Thai people don't take hot showers.. I never countered "what about industrial uses, and hotels, and the north!?".. the business is still there I would guess, although people say import duties are high!
It's nice that the Thai by reputation get around on perhaps the most fuel efficient internal combustion vehicle there is, the scooter, and they have been converting to 4 stroke engines somewhat naturally as their wealth increases, but there is no market for electrics, I have yet to see one, and I am looking for them, and Car Ownership is rising, and not just cars... trucks, mostly Hilux's and the New Ford Rangers. It's the local pollution in these Thai cities that makes people nuts.. the point source from all these tailpipes, often idling in bad traffic. Thailand has implemented some reduction in their Diesel Sulfur, it might be down to 50ppm, but you can still smell it, and a lot of the old beaters, trucks, cars, buses and way old scooters, can produce clouds of black smoke as Thailand sure as heck has never had a cash for clunkers or emissions testing program... I am not necessarily for the latter.. the old vehicles give it some character, 'it's Thailand!', but it sucks to be behind them or on a street with them, and it makes even small Thai towns feel like smoggy cancer traps. I mentioned before that at a very awkward time environmentally, as the world really starts to process Global Climate Change, with coverage booming, and acceptance and action happening. the Pheu Thai Party led by the Shinawat Siblings, in power still despite never ending protests, there was a move some years back to finance car ownership in rural areas..it was a great populist move, pandering to his rural 'rice farmer' base in these most ignored and impoverished areas like the North East I was talking about, but it seemed a bit tone deaf in light of Global Warming.. it led to a backlash amongst the more conservative economic forces, and it might make for bedfellows with the Democrats and environmentalists.. a connection I might uniquely like...The Democrats are not likely to be environmental hero's though. They were in power for like 60 years before Thaksin took over, and didn't do jack outside of maybe soil conservation, which almost happens naturally with rice farming cultures.
My last gripe is with the growing trash and consumerism problem.. being in Bangkok you feel like you are trapped in a shopping mall.. consumerism is coming on full bore and with no reservations.. there is no suspicion in Thai Culture to hedge against it.. it's a juggernaut... they are pushing Christmas in a Buddhist country, and it's working.. there is a Christmas tree in the entrance to my hotel right now... and the robotic behavior that goes with this is taking over.. still with a smile, but with some bad consequences for the environment. It's becoming impossible in nicer restaurants to just get a glass of water.. They all give you this blank look and tell you, with no irony whatsoever "We don't have that.." I know that they have water for food preparation back there, in a big white bottle with black lettering, but the wait staff of this generation are so clueless they truly just do what they are told and push the plastic bottled water.. sometimes the have glass bottles, which are reused and slightly better.. I have described in this blog that if you can have a shopping mall, you are sophisticated enough to have clean drinking water..it's not a development problem.. Thailand isn't the Congo, it's just a corruption and priorities problem.. if you can sell water, why give it away for free.. I have never seen a test of municipal water in Thailand to know it is bad, people just assume it is. Like eating white rice, it's considered the sophisticated thing to do. As a result, they waste the world resources..
A related problem is food packaging... places like Tesco and 7-11 are taking over, even though most food is still bought at local markets.. food packaging is treated like a banana leaf, and dumped willie nilly all over Thailand now, despite the fact that it's chemical makeup isn't nearly as benign as a banana leaf of old. Even in the small old school markets, plastic has replaced paper and traditional packaging. I am not saying it doesn't work better, but it ends up everywhere.. and usually they clean it at the end of the market, but Thailand has a burgeoning Trash Crisis, and some 20 years behind the times, again due to a lack of leadership, I have yet to see more than paltry evidence of recycling in the country, at least publicly.. what happens in the dumps might be another story, one I don't want to think about..
I mentioned air pollution in regards to fossil fuel emissions, but not in regards to old slash and burn.. if you get off the beaten tracks, you do learn that there is an old soul in Thailand farming away, and they still burn all their waste. People describe the thick air of April with a kind of chagrined reverence.. it's when they burn.. Doi Tung, that project in Northern Thailand, took this on years ago, but it was in regards to agriculture on the mountains.. not the elephant of Thai Agriculture, Rice Farming.. it was rumored to me that this year will be the first year it is illegal, 2014, and we shall see what happens. Even Al Gore said in "An Inconvenient Truth" that something like 1/3 of global carbon emissions come from old Slash and Burn. it's what, 10,000 years old as a practice, and somewhat understandable.. the people who slash and burn tend to have otherwise almost inconsequential carbon footprints, almost a cute issue to have to deal with, and all slash and burn was already on the earths surface, not adding carbon to the equation to some degree, but as it fits into the macro problem of global warming, it's huge, and why not develop more sophisticated practices.. if you can farm rice in the first place, you can compost properly.. we shall see what effect the laws have. A lot of the Slash and burn is intended to keep pests away, so if it comes down to kids with malaria vs burning.. burning will be the practice.
Speaking of farming.. fertilizer and worse, pesticides, seem to be squeezing in with abandon, and little knowledge of consequence and proper use. Someone told me an anecdote of watching strawberry farmers from the hills spray down their berries the morning of harvest so that no bugs would get on them on the ride to market.. there is little education that I can tell..it's just available in stores and it works.. I watched a gardener spraying inside a greenhouse in the gardens and Doi Tung with abandon, and it made me realize the story I had heard was more than true...it's just hap hazard well intentioned ag practices at work.. the majority of the farmers in these small plots just know what works for them.. there is no education system that I know of, and god knows how long people have been farming here.. like so many of these issues facing Thailand.. it's a matter of people taking solutions t face value because they work cheaply and effectively.. there is no concept of collateral consequences, except for a growing awareness of the air pollution problem, which leads to the now ubiquitous surgical masks that makes people in traffic look like Michael Jackson on a shopping trip.
Before I finish, it makes sense to peek under the Sea, and kind of under the hood of the two Thai Seas.. the Gulf of Thailand, and the Andaman. A bit of research shows that overfishing started in the mid 1960s and likely hasn't abated. Tourism has created some pressure to preserve coral reefs and the like, so there are sanctuaries, the number one most proven sea preservation tool, but I cannot speak to enforcement being through. I was on the South tip of Phuket once for a while, a few years ago, and I remember watching countless squid boats, famous for their big lights, floating about a mile or two offshore... I could just tell as I watched them day after day that they must be overfishing.. and Squid are one of those creatures that move into ecosystems when the top predators are depleted... they proliferate like pigeons in a city... it's my guess that these seas are in bad shape.. I saw some articles recently, from the last few years, warning of a Tuna population crash. The Thai fishing industry by the 1980's was one of the ten largest in the world, all with just regular investment money, no government incentives, and was hauling in 20kg per citizen when there were 50 million Thai.. there are 66 million now, and growth in Thai Human Population is actually not that fast, on par with western nations ( a perk of consumerism actually), but it's my guess that sustainable would be about half that, let alone fish for export...
The good side of Consumerism, in addition to keeping young women so busy in their 20's that they procreate less, can be that an environmental consciousness takes hold and impacts consumer spending as it has in Europe and increasingly in the US, but no dice.. I haven't seen one iota of evidence of such a move.. no Environmental Marketing. The Eco cleansing, Green-Washing at it's most in-genuine so popular in Europe, the US, and even parts of Latin America and China now.. it's just not a factor to care.. like I said, they are still kicking the tires of Christmas.
There is no skepticism...this is contemporary Thailand.. the kingdom of smiles now slowly suffering from a million deadly invasions that are neither Burmese nor Malaysian, but environmental. And not one lick of leadership, outside the Royal Family, whose efforts seem to be implemented in popular but isolated projects. People visit these places, and appreciate them, but it's hard to see the impact it has in other parts of the country. There seems to be neither student foment, farmer guilt, nor Noblis Oblige from the Upper Class to tackle these problems.. solutions can come from the outside or from good technocrats, but there is no demand, and a big world for them to impact where outside contributors don't have to start from scratch...why waste your time in Thailand when you can have an impact elsewhere? In Thailand you can get the impression pretty quickly whether your efforts are appreciated or not by the government.. Visa's beyond the standard one month tourist deal are not handed out lightly. You get the feeling often that your are here to have fun but don't meddle unless invited.
Other areas where there has been no leadership and no improvement:
Light Pollution Abatement... none
River and Streamline edge protection (I have seen places where because of logging, rivers spread out wide unabated... and other places where huge public works that look like the kinds you would ahve seen in the US 50 years ago are made to control flooding and turn rivers into ditches.
Endangered species protection just some talk.
On a deeper level there is something I have noticed about Thailand. They are not into Wild.. That satellite picture should tell you that they are domesticating everything they can.. subjugation of chaos is progress.. it's in the Thai Psyche it seems to reject disorder.. it's what distinguishes them from their Neighbors they look askance at... Lao, Burma, and Cambodia.. the kids who still have wild but can't get their act together.. Triple Canopy Jungle means Savagery, and the Thai personality is anything but.. from their fighters to their protesters, they are the anti-savages. Their impression of Malaysia is different, a bit more contested, but they associate thick jungles with an old Southeast Asia, insurgencies, opium, and silly old people, that the Leadership and hot shots of Bangkok are a bit embarrassed by.. they don't want to be Siam, they want to be Singapore with a better attitude.. it's a mega city nation.. Bangkok leads like Paris, and nostalgia for the provinces is just that.. the appreciate them for the food and for the honesty, but the heart of this Kingdom is urban, and doesn't want to be reminded of Lion's, Tigers, and Bears... It reminds them of what they were 50 years ago, and it feels undistinguished.
Maybe it's just these awkward teenage years of development... everyone has just enough Baht now to buy a truck (Thaksin helped that!), buy a scooter, and move past the banana leaf to the luxuries of plastic.. it's in that sad 15 dollar a day range of income where countries like this and Mexico seem to loose their soul to bad habits and self indulgent and small minded living patterns: lots of meat, lots of plastic, lots of driving, lots of environmental abuse, lot's of extraction, and lots of media, but it's not just the small guys, doing their thing, that are a problem.. the big guys are either corrupt or not seeing the degradation that's really happening to the country in all the turmoil being rowed up over and over again by the two parties. I have been told that the Democrats are actually good at thoughtful debate and administration, but their years of neglect of the farmer have left them out of power now for like a decade, and the other side, the Red Shirts may be corrupt, but they did jam in a Metro system and light rail to the Airport that helped Bangkok come back to almost livable, so they seem to like big lucrative projects if it helps mother earth an iota, but the focus on the details of a ecologically harmonious lifestyle that used to mark these rice growing countries are going going gone, and have been headed that way for a while it seems..
Here is what I see occurring.
Start with the big picture... the Satellite Map:
When you look at Thailand, there is something I learned that Ecologists call the Shadow of Thailand.. you can see the borders of Thailand on a satellite photo because the Thai side is inevitably deforested compared to it's neighbors.. the official numbers claim something in the 30% range, but that's not close to the real deal... a source told me that the National Forestry Administration, which is backwards and corrupt according to him, counts tree plantains for things like rubber and palm oil as part of the percentage of ground cover... which might help when it comes to carbon and reflecting and absorbing the sun, but is by no means true forest and wild habitat.. the number likely stands somewhere in the teens...
Here is some data that takes this complex question for what it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_forest_area
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Thailand.htm
Thailand has created a bunch of national parks, all very nice.. they kind of cow tow to the demands of Tourism, which is one of the largest industries in the Nation, but few of them feel like the cared for and studied ecosystems of Western National Parks. They feel like what a lot of them are... Tourist Attractions.
The last wild land in Thailand comes in two chunks, one big, the other smaller.. it's the western cluster of forests and parks, the Western Complex, that is the last true Wilderness in the Country. It supposedly has a population of about 500 wild tigers.. it's along the Myanmar border, and to some degree, it's for real.
Another Complex of three parks sits on in a set of hills North East of Bangkok. I was surprised to see it once on a flight in from Hong Kong, as the North East part of the Country, along the Mekong River, is the most deforested, and the poorest.. it is starting to get to that Flat, Hot, and Crowded stage that Thomas Friedman tries to make light of. This strip of three parks, The Prachinburi Complex I believe, sadly has a highway running right through it, but supposedly the western and eastern park are well managed and turning into nice forest land... the one in the middle, Thap Lan National Park, leaves something to be desired I was told. The North has it's parks, but they are inextricably linked with the hill tribes that live in them, and there is little primary forest left, just a lot of what was left from bouts of logging slowly starting the process of trying to wipe out signs of the impacts of man, which I once read can take up to 800 years to occur. I went through Lam Non Kok National Park recently, by boat. It's just one of many Thai National Parks, but by western standards,it seemed a park in name only... I saw nothing pristine about it, nice though it was, and although I saw no evidence of recent logging, there were very few old growth trees in my view, and mostly bamboo thicket. I saw wood gathering going on, and even grazing. It .. it seemed like it had been named a park, but it was really just a hill tribe area, and that logging had already occurred, if not by the English a century ago, by the Thai more recently, but perhaps not int he last ten years. This is anecdotal, but as I pass areas set aside as parks in Thailand, I rarely find myself gasping at what must be large beautiful tracts of forest. It feels more like there was nothing left to exploit, and it had a few waterfalls, so why not call it a park.
Doi Tung is one know Success story that describes honestly what might have been the point of departure for so many of these parks, a 160 square kilometer preserve along the Burmese border in Chiang Rai, that the King's mother worked to bring back from the brink of total deforestation brought on by years of opium growing and wood gathering. It was a noble program with many successes, truly, (not just saying this to avoid Leese Majestee Laws!) but there was a miscalculation to plant pines that were likely only indigenous to the top 2% of the land all over it, as the instrument of reforestation. Those of you who know pines know that, like a corrupt government, they don't allow much to grow around them due to acidification caused by the needles, so plans are now afoot to replace or remove the pines, but it has met with roadblocks because there is so much emotion associated with the pines which were a symbol of Doi Tung and northern Thailand's rebound... Luckily the pines have a hard time reproducing in these hotter lower slopes, so often times just fall down during the big winds that bring the monsoon, and slowly the undergrowth and more suited species are returning, and when the row is over, with help from some nobly determined managers who get what is going on finally.
This brings us to the real nut.. the things that bug me in the major cities of Thailand, well, any urban area in Thailand feels like a major city because of how it encompasses you.. you might be 100 feet from a rice paddy, but that horrible modern Thai architecture makes you feel like you are in any slum anywhere, with only the peoples pleasant smiles to remind you you aren't in the Ghettos of Cali or Johannesburg. I once read somewhere from an old Thailand ex-pat hand that if you think you are the first to notice that Modern Thai Architecture Sucks, you aren't because it has sucked since sometime after WWII.. time immemorial.. it might only look so bad because of how beautiful old Thai architecture can be, but that takes us back to deforestation.. that teak doesn't grow on trees you know... well it does, but you usually have to cut them down to get it... but all that bad architecture for me seems like a karmic trade off for where your electricity comes from, not such an insane notion in a Buddhist country. The Thai Grid is somewhere around 90% fossil fueled... a lot of it is natural gas from the Andaman Sea, The Yetagun Gas fields, pumped through a pipeline graciously set up by Myanmar's old dictatorship... some of it I believe comes from newly explored areas in the Gulf of Thailand in joint exploration with Malaysia, but there is a lot of oil being pumped in too. There has been no leadership to change this that I know of... it's one of those big Bangkok corporate mysteries would be my guess. The King put in a bunch of hydroelectric dam's over the years, but they were more to aid irrigation.. the mountains of Thailand tend to rise up from flat valleys, most of the country is just one big river valley and alluvial plane, therefore anyplace you can build a big dam doesn't have a lot of fall.. it can't generate enough height to make a lot of electricity, so I believe it only accounts for like 10%, and I have seen no evidence of any other attempts to tap into other alternative sources for grid power.. seen a bunch of hot springs, but no Geothermal, seen a lot of sun, but no solar panels.
A year or two ago, maybe 2012, there was the first attempt to offer rebates for solar.. it supposedly was a bit botched bureaucratically, with people needing to get industrial zoning permits above a small kilowattage to install panels, but it happened, a nice first step. Thailand is one of those countries where things don't happen organically. In the Shan state of Burma, Solar Electricity and Solar Hot Water Units are everywhere, being trucked down from the Chinese Solar Capital of nearby Kunming. It's a Laisaiz Faire Success story, but in Thailand, everything rises and falls with Politics.. everything is secretly calculated... behind the smile, there is a self benefit calculator ticking away, and nothing is going to happen without government leadership.. no electric scooters, no alternative energies, no solar.. Thai people are pleasant and do what they are told until they are told to do something else.. it's not an innovative place.. the combination of emphasis on Royal tradition and the growing commercialism of the country make independent though and action less and less common. The idea of an autonomous move to greener energies just isn't int he cards here by character... they are all controlled from bankok, and waiting for subsidies..
As an example, I had a Thai buddy who was looking for a product to import. I told him why not buy Solar Hot Water units from China... he laughed and told me Thai people don't take hot showers.. I never countered "what about industrial uses, and hotels, and the north!?".. the business is still there I would guess, although people say import duties are high!
It's nice that the Thai by reputation get around on perhaps the most fuel efficient internal combustion vehicle there is, the scooter, and they have been converting to 4 stroke engines somewhat naturally as their wealth increases, but there is no market for electrics, I have yet to see one, and I am looking for them, and Car Ownership is rising, and not just cars... trucks, mostly Hilux's and the New Ford Rangers. It's the local pollution in these Thai cities that makes people nuts.. the point source from all these tailpipes, often idling in bad traffic. Thailand has implemented some reduction in their Diesel Sulfur, it might be down to 50ppm, but you can still smell it, and a lot of the old beaters, trucks, cars, buses and way old scooters, can produce clouds of black smoke as Thailand sure as heck has never had a cash for clunkers or emissions testing program... I am not necessarily for the latter.. the old vehicles give it some character, 'it's Thailand!', but it sucks to be behind them or on a street with them, and it makes even small Thai towns feel like smoggy cancer traps. I mentioned before that at a very awkward time environmentally, as the world really starts to process Global Climate Change, with coverage booming, and acceptance and action happening. the Pheu Thai Party led by the Shinawat Siblings, in power still despite never ending protests, there was a move some years back to finance car ownership in rural areas..it was a great populist move, pandering to his rural 'rice farmer' base in these most ignored and impoverished areas like the North East I was talking about, but it seemed a bit tone deaf in light of Global Warming.. it led to a backlash amongst the more conservative economic forces, and it might make for bedfellows with the Democrats and environmentalists.. a connection I might uniquely like...The Democrats are not likely to be environmental hero's though. They were in power for like 60 years before Thaksin took over, and didn't do jack outside of maybe soil conservation, which almost happens naturally with rice farming cultures.
My last gripe is with the growing trash and consumerism problem.. being in Bangkok you feel like you are trapped in a shopping mall.. consumerism is coming on full bore and with no reservations.. there is no suspicion in Thai Culture to hedge against it.. it's a juggernaut... they are pushing Christmas in a Buddhist country, and it's working.. there is a Christmas tree in the entrance to my hotel right now... and the robotic behavior that goes with this is taking over.. still with a smile, but with some bad consequences for the environment. It's becoming impossible in nicer restaurants to just get a glass of water.. They all give you this blank look and tell you, with no irony whatsoever "We don't have that.." I know that they have water for food preparation back there, in a big white bottle with black lettering, but the wait staff of this generation are so clueless they truly just do what they are told and push the plastic bottled water.. sometimes the have glass bottles, which are reused and slightly better.. I have described in this blog that if you can have a shopping mall, you are sophisticated enough to have clean drinking water..it's not a development problem.. Thailand isn't the Congo, it's just a corruption and priorities problem.. if you can sell water, why give it away for free.. I have never seen a test of municipal water in Thailand to know it is bad, people just assume it is. Like eating white rice, it's considered the sophisticated thing to do. As a result, they waste the world resources..
A related problem is food packaging... places like Tesco and 7-11 are taking over, even though most food is still bought at local markets.. food packaging is treated like a banana leaf, and dumped willie nilly all over Thailand now, despite the fact that it's chemical makeup isn't nearly as benign as a banana leaf of old. Even in the small old school markets, plastic has replaced paper and traditional packaging. I am not saying it doesn't work better, but it ends up everywhere.. and usually they clean it at the end of the market, but Thailand has a burgeoning Trash Crisis, and some 20 years behind the times, again due to a lack of leadership, I have yet to see more than paltry evidence of recycling in the country, at least publicly.. what happens in the dumps might be another story, one I don't want to think about..
I mentioned air pollution in regards to fossil fuel emissions, but not in regards to old slash and burn.. if you get off the beaten tracks, you do learn that there is an old soul in Thailand farming away, and they still burn all their waste. People describe the thick air of April with a kind of chagrined reverence.. it's when they burn.. Doi Tung, that project in Northern Thailand, took this on years ago, but it was in regards to agriculture on the mountains.. not the elephant of Thai Agriculture, Rice Farming.. it was rumored to me that this year will be the first year it is illegal, 2014, and we shall see what happens. Even Al Gore said in "An Inconvenient Truth" that something like 1/3 of global carbon emissions come from old Slash and Burn. it's what, 10,000 years old as a practice, and somewhat understandable.. the people who slash and burn tend to have otherwise almost inconsequential carbon footprints, almost a cute issue to have to deal with, and all slash and burn was already on the earths surface, not adding carbon to the equation to some degree, but as it fits into the macro problem of global warming, it's huge, and why not develop more sophisticated practices.. if you can farm rice in the first place, you can compost properly.. we shall see what effect the laws have. A lot of the Slash and burn is intended to keep pests away, so if it comes down to kids with malaria vs burning.. burning will be the practice.
Speaking of farming.. fertilizer and worse, pesticides, seem to be squeezing in with abandon, and little knowledge of consequence and proper use. Someone told me an anecdote of watching strawberry farmers from the hills spray down their berries the morning of harvest so that no bugs would get on them on the ride to market.. there is little education that I can tell..it's just available in stores and it works.. I watched a gardener spraying inside a greenhouse in the gardens and Doi Tung with abandon, and it made me realize the story I had heard was more than true...it's just hap hazard well intentioned ag practices at work.. the majority of the farmers in these small plots just know what works for them.. there is no education system that I know of, and god knows how long people have been farming here.. like so many of these issues facing Thailand.. it's a matter of people taking solutions t face value because they work cheaply and effectively.. there is no concept of collateral consequences, except for a growing awareness of the air pollution problem, which leads to the now ubiquitous surgical masks that makes people in traffic look like Michael Jackson on a shopping trip.
Before I finish, it makes sense to peek under the Sea, and kind of under the hood of the two Thai Seas.. the Gulf of Thailand, and the Andaman. A bit of research shows that overfishing started in the mid 1960s and likely hasn't abated. Tourism has created some pressure to preserve coral reefs and the like, so there are sanctuaries, the number one most proven sea preservation tool, but I cannot speak to enforcement being through. I was on the South tip of Phuket once for a while, a few years ago, and I remember watching countless squid boats, famous for their big lights, floating about a mile or two offshore... I could just tell as I watched them day after day that they must be overfishing.. and Squid are one of those creatures that move into ecosystems when the top predators are depleted... they proliferate like pigeons in a city... it's my guess that these seas are in bad shape.. I saw some articles recently, from the last few years, warning of a Tuna population crash. The Thai fishing industry by the 1980's was one of the ten largest in the world, all with just regular investment money, no government incentives, and was hauling in 20kg per citizen when there were 50 million Thai.. there are 66 million now, and growth in Thai Human Population is actually not that fast, on par with western nations ( a perk of consumerism actually), but it's my guess that sustainable would be about half that, let alone fish for export...
The good side of Consumerism, in addition to keeping young women so busy in their 20's that they procreate less, can be that an environmental consciousness takes hold and impacts consumer spending as it has in Europe and increasingly in the US, but no dice.. I haven't seen one iota of evidence of such a move.. no Environmental Marketing. The Eco cleansing, Green-Washing at it's most in-genuine so popular in Europe, the US, and even parts of Latin America and China now.. it's just not a factor to care.. like I said, they are still kicking the tires of Christmas.
There is no skepticism...this is contemporary Thailand.. the kingdom of smiles now slowly suffering from a million deadly invasions that are neither Burmese nor Malaysian, but environmental. And not one lick of leadership, outside the Royal Family, whose efforts seem to be implemented in popular but isolated projects. People visit these places, and appreciate them, but it's hard to see the impact it has in other parts of the country. There seems to be neither student foment, farmer guilt, nor Noblis Oblige from the Upper Class to tackle these problems.. solutions can come from the outside or from good technocrats, but there is no demand, and a big world for them to impact where outside contributors don't have to start from scratch...why waste your time in Thailand when you can have an impact elsewhere? In Thailand you can get the impression pretty quickly whether your efforts are appreciated or not by the government.. Visa's beyond the standard one month tourist deal are not handed out lightly. You get the feeling often that your are here to have fun but don't meddle unless invited.
Other areas where there has been no leadership and no improvement:
Light Pollution Abatement... none
River and Streamline edge protection (I have seen places where because of logging, rivers spread out wide unabated... and other places where huge public works that look like the kinds you would ahve seen in the US 50 years ago are made to control flooding and turn rivers into ditches.
Endangered species protection just some talk.
On a deeper level there is something I have noticed about Thailand. They are not into Wild.. That satellite picture should tell you that they are domesticating everything they can.. subjugation of chaos is progress.. it's in the Thai Psyche it seems to reject disorder.. it's what distinguishes them from their Neighbors they look askance at... Lao, Burma, and Cambodia.. the kids who still have wild but can't get their act together.. Triple Canopy Jungle means Savagery, and the Thai personality is anything but.. from their fighters to their protesters, they are the anti-savages. Their impression of Malaysia is different, a bit more contested, but they associate thick jungles with an old Southeast Asia, insurgencies, opium, and silly old people, that the Leadership and hot shots of Bangkok are a bit embarrassed by.. they don't want to be Siam, they want to be Singapore with a better attitude.. it's a mega city nation.. Bangkok leads like Paris, and nostalgia for the provinces is just that.. the appreciate them for the food and for the honesty, but the heart of this Kingdom is urban, and doesn't want to be reminded of Lion's, Tigers, and Bears... It reminds them of what they were 50 years ago, and it feels undistinguished.
Sunday, December 22
Silly Rules from Around the World
In Panama, you are not allowed to be shirtless in public.
In Colombia, there are laws against two men riding motorcycles together on regular pay days because there are so many robberies in many major cities, including Cartagena. Motor Taxis have to take the day off unless they are carrying women.
In Singapore, it was illegal to chew or import gum, and you are guilty until proven innocent in many if not all legal instances. You can now buy therapeutic gums in pharmacies, but will still get busted for discarding it on the street. It's also illegal to criticise the Prime Minister Emeritus Lee Kuan Yu
In Laussane, Switzerland, or perhaps in it's surrounding Canton of Vaud, in the worlds oldest Democracy by many measures, they allegedly passed a law making it illegal for Women to do laundry during the lunch hours when their children are home from school, so that they will feed their children instead of doing the wash.
In Los Angeles, California, there are places where no parking goes into effect at 9pm on Saturday and Sunday nights, and there are businesses that make their money exclusively off the tow fees, not running it in addition to a garage or normal tow truck operation.
It is also illegal to play ball games on the beaches of LA.
In Washington DC, it is illegal to build a building taller than the Capitol Dome. Likewise in Paris with the
In Colombia, there are laws against two men riding motorcycles together on regular pay days because there are so many robberies in many major cities, including Cartagena. Motor Taxis have to take the day off unless they are carrying women.
In Singapore, it was illegal to chew or import gum, and you are guilty until proven innocent in many if not all legal instances. You can now buy therapeutic gums in pharmacies, but will still get busted for discarding it on the street. It's also illegal to criticise the Prime Minister Emeritus Lee Kuan Yu
In Laussane, Switzerland, or perhaps in it's surrounding Canton of Vaud, in the worlds oldest Democracy by many measures, they allegedly passed a law making it illegal for Women to do laundry during the lunch hours when their children are home from school, so that they will feed their children instead of doing the wash.
In Los Angeles, California, there are places where no parking goes into effect at 9pm on Saturday and Sunday nights, and there are businesses that make their money exclusively off the tow fees, not running it in addition to a garage or normal tow truck operation.
It is also illegal to play ball games on the beaches of LA.
In Washington DC, it is illegal to build a building taller than the Capitol Dome. Likewise in Paris with the
Arc de Triumphe.
At a Hotel called The Bodhi Serene in Chng Mai, Thailand, there is a sign banning Durian, a tasty but remarkably smelly fruit that is popular from Asia to Belize.
In Thailand, it's illegal to speak ill of the King and Royal Family. It's called 'Leisee Majiste'. There is a guy supposedly in jail for being drunk and peeing on a photo of the king. He was spotted by closed circuit TV... he's been in two years as I type this.
In China you can only have one child, with rare exception. Supposedly it has prevented 200 million births to date.
Foreigners have to pay by the pay to stay in Bhutan.. last I heard it was 250USD per day.
Sodomy was illegal in many US states until 2003 (The definition includes but was not limited to, how shall we say it, back door sex.) when it was finally ruled a right by the US Supreme Court. Many other nations still have enforceable laws on the books. So have at it in the US!
In Cardiff Wales, UK, it's an extra pound to get in a cab on Sunday. Never mind that maybe half the cab drivers I saw seem to celebrate their holy day on Friday, the law is only 20 years old I was told, not 50 or more like most religious laws.
If you leave a bag on a Train on the Great Western Railway of England, they put it in baggage storage and charge you 11 pounds for the first day and 7.50 for every day after.. kind of a pain in the ass if you looose something inexpensive but sentimental.. it goes to a corporate run pawn shop.. entitlement is so English, as well as not getting anything extra for the tons of money you pay for everything there.. oh you want soy sauce.. that's extra!
In Thailand, it's illegal to speak ill of the King and Royal Family. It's called 'Leisee Majiste'. There is a guy supposedly in jail for being drunk and peeing on a photo of the king. He was spotted by closed circuit TV... he's been in two years as I type this.
In China you can only have one child, with rare exception. Supposedly it has prevented 200 million births to date.
Foreigners have to pay by the pay to stay in Bhutan.. last I heard it was 250USD per day.
Sodomy was illegal in many US states until 2003 (The definition includes but was not limited to, how shall we say it, back door sex.) when it was finally ruled a right by the US Supreme Court. Many other nations still have enforceable laws on the books. So have at it in the US!
In Cardiff Wales, UK, it's an extra pound to get in a cab on Sunday. Never mind that maybe half the cab drivers I saw seem to celebrate their holy day on Friday, the law is only 20 years old I was told, not 50 or more like most religious laws.
If you leave a bag on a Train on the Great Western Railway of England, they put it in baggage storage and charge you 11 pounds for the first day and 7.50 for every day after.. kind of a pain in the ass if you looose something inexpensive but sentimental.. it goes to a corporate run pawn shop.. entitlement is so English, as well as not getting anything extra for the tons of money you pay for everything there.. oh you want soy sauce.. that's extra!
Tuesday, November 26
Island Prisons Around the World
There is something undeniably exotic
about an island prison. For some it is the epitome of justice, for
others it represents somehow a great challenge to the human spirit
and hope. To all there is something intriguing about it, a challenge
of some sort, a declaration of fear and threat, a complete
ostracization that can horrify. It seems to take the idea of Societal
separation and thrust it into the realm of Penalization no matter
what the daily regimen might be.
As I travel, I have noticed that
Alcatraz, the example from my culture that I grew up with, was not
the only version of this idea. Many are familiar with Devil's Island from
the Steve McQueen movie Papillion, as well as from the famous
Dreyfus Affair, or Robin Island where Nelson
Mandela and other ANC convicts were held. I became intrigued when I
discovered others around the world. Many of them are decommissioned, as 'Prison Technology' and Increasing Human Right's Standards have made the natural barrier of water less important or the isolation less condoned.
Alcatraz Island, Former US Federal
Penitentiary, San Francisco Bay, California, USA
Portsmouth Naval Prison, Maine, USA
Robin Island, Cape Town Bay, Cape
Province, South Africa
Gogona Island, Tuscan Archipelago,Italy
Gorgona Penal Colony, Pacific Ocean, Colombia
Devil's Island, Atlantic Ocean, French Guayana
Islas Marias Federal Prison, Pacific Ocean, Nayarit Mexico
Coiba Island Prison, Pacific Ocean, Panama
Bastoy Boys Home and Prison Bastoy Island, Norway
Elba Island, Mediterrainian Sea, France Not a prison, but where Napoleaon was exiled to first
St. Helena Island, Atlantic Ocean, United Kingdom Second and Final Exile location of Napoleaon, but again, not a prison
Camp X Ray, Guantanamo Bay, Carribean
Sea, US Navy Base Guantanamo, Cuba (not an Island in and of it'self,
but politically it is, and it carries with it that same notoriety
now.
Reikers Island Correctional Facility,
Long Island Sound, New York, USA
Fort Jeffeson, Dry Totugas,Florida, USA
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here” Housed a few of the Lincoln assassination participants.
Fort Pulaski, Savannah River,
Georgia, USA famous not just for the Battle that ended the fixed fortification era, but also famous for the Immortal 600, a group of Confederate prisoners who were housed there
HMS Maidstone, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK Actually an Old Ship, a neat variation on the theme. Ships have been used in a bunch of other situations too.
Furthur research shows a few more:
Norfolk Island, Australia
Solovetsky Island, Russia
Pianoska, Tuscan Archipelago, Italy
Chateaux D'If, Mareseille, France
McNeil Island Correction Center, Puget Sound, Washington, USA
Black Beach, Bioko Island, Equitorial Guinea
Goree Island, Senegal
Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution, Los Angeles, California, USA
Monday, November 25
Gambling Around the World: A Survey
Gambling around the world...
I find gambling to be a bit boring..
it's all numbers, and where the human element is involved, I wish
that's all there was, with no damn math or worrying, but some people
love it, and it's big, big in travel, big in the modern definition of
decadence, and something that those with more money than sense love
to do.. since this blog is often about Sociology and Geography, let me tell you where it occurs, while I make fun of it.
Gambling is legal in some way or
another almost everywhere, as a lottery or some form of organized and
regulated action, but Casinos in the truest sense of the word are not
ubiquitous.. here is a run down on where I know it to exist.
Gambling destinations:
Macao
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Reno, Nevada and every small town in
Nevada has some sort of slots casino.
Principality of Monaco (this is the
place James Bond made big)
St. Moritz, Switzerland
Sun City, North West Province, South Africa
Beirut, Lebanon
New Providence, Bahamas
Channel Islands, UK
San Andres, Caribbean Sea, Colombia
Atlantic City, NJ
CalNeva, Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Tunica, Mississippi, USA
Biloxi, Mississippi, USA
Akihabra, Tokyo, Japan
Muang La, Semi-Autonomous Region of Eastern Shan State, Special Region 4, Myanmar
Akihabra, Tokyo, Japan
Muang La, Semi-Autonomous Region of Eastern Shan State, Special Region 4, Myanmar
Indian Reservations through the US, most
famously Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Casinos in Eastern Connecticut,
which most famously exploited this loophole of reservation self
governance and nationhood on two small neglected reservations near a
large population that was remote to all other gambling options. They
were followed by tribes all over the US, most commonly in the west,
but close to Miami and Los Angleles most notably, in the Miccosukee and Morongo tribes respectively. It all seems to have risen out of
Tribal Bingo Halls, popular for years, and also popular with American
elderly as a pastime to sedentarily wile away the days.
Outside of Chicago there is growth of
gambling on the shores of Indiana's portion of Lake Michigan, and
Some of the Old Mountain towns of the Colorado Rockies looked to
gambling as a way up, when Skiing wasn't an option, and it seems
inevitable that Old industrial towns use it as a way to make
something out of nothing, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Windsor,
Canada (across from Detroit), trying to replace the income of the
factories to salvage bygone times, but they seem to have a mixed
effect on the fantasy of restoring those more innocent and
industrious times, but are kind of a desperate last resort in the
failing one company municipalities bag of tricks.
Havana is off the list, other than Lotto and Dominoes and whatever else people can get away with.
In Central America it seems like every
town of some worth has a casino of sorts, usually an open location
for prostitution as well, although Mexico has so far kept a hat on
all but gaming machines above board, genuflecting to the patina of
Catholic Piety that allows Mexico to pretend it's not nearly as
plagued by vice as everyone knows it is, saving face and absolutely
nothing else, while the fix is in in so many ways.
Russia has 4 places where it can occur, most notably on the Black Sea near where the Winter Olympics in Sochi will take place. For the Middle East, it's Lebanon and Israel other then the Camel Races and such, although I think Morroco and Egypt have some casinos.
Cards are ubiquitous around the world.
No one seems to take to gambling in general more than the Chinese,
who are obsessed with it, from Mah Jong, the Dominoes like national
pastime, to any way to wager. Europeans have Horses, which they have
exported near and far, Arabian's Camels, the Basque Jai Lai which made
it into the US, and Dog Racing has a few bastions as a kind of ugly
step child to horses, a middle-er class pursuit even more devoid of the
trappings of wealth away from the marquee events. I believe there is
a special horse race every year in St. Moritz on an ice covered lake, the White Turf Races they call it and another variation is Carting, where instead of being ridden, the
horses drag a buggy and rider, and there are also the standard
variants of turf, dirt, and steeplechase which includes jumps and
even water traps.
Fighting is of huge interest worldwide
as a subject of wagering, both human and animal forms of combat.
Boxing dominates a few select countries, from England to Mexico to
the Philippians, Thai Boxing of huge interest in Thailand and perhaps
Myanmar.There are two stadiums in Bangkok alone that seem to fill up
almost nightly. Sumo for Japan (yes, it's a big betting thing, and
like all these things, looks classier from afar). Ultimate Fighting
Championships and a competitor called Bo-Dog continue to grow in the
US and worldwide, with slight differences in what seems like a
rule-less death match, but conditions exist to prevent death, brain
damage, major scarring, and reproductive damage. Brazil contributed a
lot of the first energy to UFC, and it is going international much
like boxing, and Canada and a few other countries seem to also be all
in. Asia and Latin America seem to revel in Cock Fighting from one
end to the other, and dog fighting has footholds in the American
South, parts of Mexico, and Asia to my knowledge. Bull Fighting might
attract some betting, but it's more a spectacle with a known outcome
by my observations in places like Colombia, and Mexico, where it
still exists. I believe it has been banned in Spain, but I wonder if
it wandered off to Morocco or someplace like that where Spanish bad
habits go.
On the more exotic side, I once
happened upon a Bull on Bull fight, in some rice paddies in Rural
China, not expecting to see anyone,much less a crowd. Two either Beef
or Yak Bulls where herded into a rice paddy to tear it up and fight
to the death while in rut, and a few hundred had gathered to watch. I
didn't stick around long enough to see the money go down, but you can
imagine in a place like China, it was going down, and I imagined this
to be common even with Water Buffalo throughout Asia.
Someone once told me of a bare knuckles
or roped hands fight that occurs on the Burmese-Thai border once a
year, but I have never heard any more of it. Obviously in the major
gambling centers all manner of professional sports and possibilities
are wagered on, even elections and the success of space shots, on the
books and legally, in addition to the ad hoc arrangements that might
exist for such activities close to anywhere there might be a bookie.
Despite it's regal appearance, Cricket
is plagued by betting and perhaps even match fixing in South Central
Asia where it I most popular, Pakistan and India having turned it
into an obsession which might have led to the murder of a coach
during the Cricket world cup held in the West Indies a few years
back.
Sports betting of all kinds is huge around the world, with Soccer now the world's biggest sport. In the US, Pro Football and High School Basketball are famous for attracting betting, with the NCAA March Madness tournament such a common betting subject that US president Barack Obama, whose brother in Law is a top College Basketball coach, releases his bracket predictions every year. The betting ranges from formal and legal to the common and kind of generally winked at practice of office pools. US baseball was rocked by betting scandals in it's early history, but nothing of consequence, such as intentionally loosing, has come to public attention in years.
Online Gaming is all offshore from the
US, and the government actively works to subvert and ban it, alleging
it is anything from Money Laundering to plain old Vice. Gaming
systems are a regular addition to revenue in down and out drinking
establishments around the world, uniform in their kind of stark
sadness, with the games kind of accentuating the fact that if there were ever good times, they have come and gone. In the US it is
regulated state by state, but they are big systems that sit on bar tops
or nearby tables and usually offer some version of slots or video
blackjack with a bunch of scantily clad video encouragements to
continue. I have seen them throughout Central America, and I think
even in New Zealand and Africa. In addition to the recent resurgence
of Poker among America's educated classes, with a parallel interest
in it's professional ranks in places like Vegas and in sanctioned
tournaments as far afield from regular den's of vice as Vermont,
there are regional parlor games that lend themselves to betting:
Eucher in the Midwest, cribbage in England and New England. Dominoes
holds court in the Caribbean, and much of the Mediterranean, and it
may seem cliché, but it always seems to be played by old men hanging
out near a body of water.
In Addition to Sumo, Japan has it's own
forms of gambling that are kind of offshoots of Video Game Arcades,
and there is a whole district in Tokyo, Akihabra, dedicated to it. Could this be the future?
Monday, September 9
Latin American Colonial Towns
For some reason, as much as they possess a stunning regularity, I am always seduced into traveling long distances, usually uncomfortable miles, to see another Latin Colonial Town. Now every Latin town, almost without exception, will have a Cathedral worth looking at, a cute town plaza, called a Zocalo in Mexico, and The Plaza Mayor, or Parque Central in the rest of Latin America. What makes these towns different is that in most modern Latin towns, the architecture beyond this square, or perhaps even on it, was destroyed to make way for growth and rid the homes of the plaster and thatch that can harbor pests that carry disease, and doesn't necessarily stand up to the elements, but in these towns, what makes them distinct, is that the architecture doesn't change to cement block for blocks if not a mile, in what is usually a concentric pattern from the Plaza Mayor that is fairly uniform in all directions. In other words, no matter how crappy it eventually becomes, if it is colonial and charming for 200 meters north of the Town Square, it will usually also be Colonial and Charming 200m west, east, and south before it drops off to the banal cement homes that make up Latin America everywhere, with high walls, bad lighting, and barking dogs. The best case scenario, seen occasionally but not often, is that the town drops off to farmland and perhaps even forest or jungle from the last colonial house... these are special places.
Most Countries in Latin America have one special town they have cleaned up and send the tourists to, and they treat it as their cultural homeland. The best ones join the ever growing list of World Heritage sites, many deservedly, some just because the UN has a hard time saying no.
Here is a list of as many notable ones as I could think of or have visited, as exhaustive a list as I can come up with. My favorite, for some odd reason, is Casco Viejo in Panama City, which still has a lovely blend of charm, ocean, down and out, and creativity.
If you can believe it, this list starts in the United States:
Tumacacori Mission, Arizona just a mission, but amazingly pristine
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Barbera Mission, California
Mexico has 50 Colonial Towns they have dolled up and given special distinction, and extra money to stimulate tourism. The Extra money isn't always great. They are paving all the streets now of Todos Santos, in southern Baja, and it is somehow removing something, but the place does look more first world now no doubt.
50 Pueblo Magicos
http://www.pueblosmexico.com.mx/pueblos_magicos.php
San Cristobol de Las Casas
Cuernavaca, Morelos (Cortez's headquarters)
Tasco, Guerro (famous for it's dramatic mountainside setting)
Todos Santos, BCS
San Ignacio, BCS
Mulege, BCS
El Triunfo, BCS
Loreto BCS
Mexcaltitan, Nayarit the Mexican Venice
Havana Cuba
Cienfuegos Cuba
Trinidad Cuba
Camaguey Cuba
Antigua, Guatemala
Granada, Nicaragua
Casco Viejo, Ciudad Panama, Panama
Portobello, Panama
Nombre De Dios, Panama (perhaps the oldest settlement on the mainland of the Americas)
Cartagena, Colombia
Mompox, Colombia
La Mina, Cesar, Colombia
Popoyan, Colombia
Villa De Lavaya, Colombia
Santa Fe De Antioquia, Antioquia, Colombia
Barichara, Colombia
La Candelaria, Bogota, Colombia
Paraty, Brazil
Salvador, Brazil
Ouro Prieto, Brazil
Cusco, Peru
Cotacachi, Ecuador
Quito,Ecuador
Las Penas, Guayaquil, Ecuador (tiny portion of guayaquil, although historically significant)
Cuenca, Ecuador
Parroquia de Tumbabiro, Ecuador
Sucre, Bolivia
Valparaiso, Chile
Most Countries in Latin America have one special town they have cleaned up and send the tourists to, and they treat it as their cultural homeland. The best ones join the ever growing list of World Heritage sites, many deservedly, some just because the UN has a hard time saying no.
Here is a list of as many notable ones as I could think of or have visited, as exhaustive a list as I can come up with. My favorite, for some odd reason, is Casco Viejo in Panama City, which still has a lovely blend of charm, ocean, down and out, and creativity.
If you can believe it, this list starts in the United States:
Tumacacori Mission, Arizona just a mission, but amazingly pristine
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Barbera Mission, California
Mission San Antonio de Padua, Fort Hunter Ligget, California again, just a mission, but pristine
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Luis, Colorado (hard to explain.. not completely, but they still use the Water Canal System from the days when it was part of Mexico)
50 Pueblo Magicos
http://www.pueblosmexico.com.mx/pueblos_magicos.php
San Cristobol de Las Casas
Cuernavaca, Morelos (Cortez's headquarters)
Tasco, Guerro (famous for it's dramatic mountainside setting)
Todos Santos, BCS
San Ignacio, BCS
Mulege, BCS
El Triunfo, BCS
Loreto BCS
Mexcaltitan, Nayarit the Mexican Venice
Havana Cuba
Cienfuegos Cuba
Trinidad Cuba
Camaguey Cuba
Bamayo Cuba
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Vinales Cuba
Antigua, Guatemala
Granada, Nicaragua
Casco Viejo, Ciudad Panama, Panama
Portobello, Panama
Nombre De Dios, Panama (perhaps the oldest settlement on the mainland of the Americas)
Cartagena, Colombia
Mompox, Colombia
La Mina, Cesar, Colombia
Popoyan, Colombia
Villa De Lavaya, Colombia
Santa Fe De Antioquia, Antioquia, Colombia
Barichara, Colombia
La Candelaria, Bogota, Colombia
Paraty, Brazil
Salvador, Brazil
Ouro Prieto, Brazil
Cusco, Peru
Cotacachi, Ecuador
Quito,Ecuador
Las Penas, Guayaquil, Ecuador (tiny portion of guayaquil, although historically significant)
Cuenca, Ecuador
Parroquia de Tumbabiro, Ecuador
Sucre, Bolivia
Valparaiso, Chile
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