Voyagner

The Ethical & Responsible Travel Minefield

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by Dan in Travel Philosophy

Just about every country seems to have a place on many travelers’ lists that will draw commendation from some.

In Australia climbing Uluru (Ayers Rock) might be frowned upon, signs at the rock tell visitors that climbing it is disrespectful to the aboriginals. There are many things tourists do wherever they go the inevitably cause offense to some locals.

In Cambodia visitors to the killing fields have come under fire as the concession was sold to a Japanese country and the government refuses to cremate the remains in a traditional Buddhist ceremony.

However no one discouraged visiting Angkor where the Apsara authority was given… without public tender and only a small fraction of the profit is returned to the maintenance of the historic site. While unlicensed guides are excluded from the killing fields they are found at many temples where they pay bribes to police daily to be allowed to extort money from ambushed tourists.

My personal experience having visited both Choung Ek and Toul Sleng was that I felt I learned much more about Cambodia and how people have treated each other in the past and still do today in the fields. We see that governments are willing to sell off their own history in order to line their own pockets with a quick dollar. The business at any cost attitude that exists worldwide becomes clear and the few companies making token gestures of environmental and social responsibility in the west only represent a small portion. Bad business prevails and often the governments meant to regulate and protect us are in some way involved.

There is no consensus in Cambodia that remains from the KR era should be cremated, the number of similar memorials around the country, all Buddhist, shows that Cambodians feel these memorials are appropriate. As for those who describe it as voyeuristic, it’s an ignorant assumption to make that people visit to be shocked and horrified. Yes it is shocking and horrifying but most of us leave with far more than rattled emotions, find me a backpacker who didn’t learn much more from the experience.

More recently we have seen drug tours become popular in South America. While some are buying cheap cocaine direct from drug lords in Columbia there are others in Burma doing their hardest to make sure as little of their tourist dollar goes to the the ruling junta as possible.

While travel teaches us about a lot of the good things about the world, when we consider responsible and ethical travel we also learn that there is a lot more bad dealings going on than we tend to uncover at home. It is literally a minefield when you choose to look beyond the surface, particularly in developing nations. We have a responsibility to ourselves and the people of the countries we visit to learn about it and consider the choices we make when we travel.

Note: I love Road Junky, there are plenty of great opinionated pieces and often I disagree, that’s why I like it, I found with this post though I not only disagreed, I found it hypocritical. The last paragraph describes the exact opposite of my time in Cambodia and I’m sure it does for many others as well. I do however admit to one happy pizza.