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Post by tzarine on Mar 8, 2017 20:20:47 GMT 2
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 8, 2017 23:47:58 GMT 2
It's all true. I am just lucky enough to have seen lots of the world before mass tourism destroyed it. I first went to Greece in 1957. I think that year Greece had 60,000 foreign visitors. Truly I was made to feel a guest and it was difficult to pay for a meal in a taverna.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 9, 2017 1:05:25 GMT 2
The journey to the West Country, starting in the wee small hours took us passed Stonehenge around dawn, and it was only a hop over the fence a few minutes walk and a clamber onto some old prostrate lumps of rock and hey presto! Not sure it was a good model to follow though.
I didn't really understand their point about Stonehenge; the road has been there a long time and isn't there to service tourism.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 9, 2017 1:07:21 GMT 2
I seem to recall walking around a more or less deserted Louvre, I supposed that has changed by now.
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Post by tzarine on Mar 9, 2017 3:47:31 GMT 2
there are crowds around mona
yes the great wall
tho the day we went to mutianyu, there were only about 5 people
even less on the part that hadn't been restored
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Post by sophie on Mar 9, 2017 4:21:58 GMT 2
My first time in Egypt was in the early 70's. There were very few tourists. We had to bike into the valley of the kings from Luxor.. None of this paved road and busses business! We also able to go into the original king Tut's tomb.. Was still able to go into the original one when I took our son there in the early '90's.
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Post by kuskiwi on Mar 9, 2017 5:40:49 GMT 2
Now that LP has mentioned my province as a 'got to" we are having major issues with overcrowding and basic stupidity. People hiking a mountain in jandals, no food, no wet weather clothing. They come to enjoy the great outdoors and isolation, yet come expecting a café every 20 metres on the mountain. They are usually ill equipped and now our voluntary rescue organisations can't cope with the callouts and so many lost days of income for the volunteers.
I'm another who was lucky enough to see a lot of places before mass tourism and feel privileged to have had that pleasure.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 9, 2017 11:22:31 GMT 2
ah, kiwi... they're probably the same who tried to hike the matterhorm in shorts and flip flops...
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 9, 2017 13:16:19 GMT 2
They are usually ill equipped and now our voluntary rescue organisations can't cope with the callouts and so many lost days of income for the volunteers. I doubt it is still possible in a world mediated by social twitter chambers but I would be sorely tempted to finish their rehabilitation by sitting them down and giving them a good telling off in very certain and somewhat vulgar terms. I do wonder how rescue volunteers cope, perhaps they just have a very sunny disposition and enjoy shepherding the clueless.
On another thought, I must wonder if there would be a real culture clash between the famously resilient and their heedless guests. For those that are puzzled: In 1940 there was a need for a certain type of individual to volunteer for special duties in North Africa, the requirement indicated one promising group, and so the soldiers of the 2nd New Zealand Division were invited to volunteer which LRhalf of them did for the 80 or so posts on offer. Major Bagnold was specifically looking New Zealand farmers and from such the LRDG was formed. ETA: Amongst over things, the LRDG inserted the newer and still nascent SAS behind enemy lines and then retrieved them. Well you wouldn't want them getting lost.  |
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Post by tzarine on Mar 9, 2017 19:07:14 GMT 2
& now idiots are posing on snapchat @ exotic places, falling & dying
dont get me started on the people who think you can go hiking wo food water, proper clothes or take a mountain shortcut, then have the state do a massive search & find them dead near where they started
like the kims. there were so many articles about their romance, their beautiful kids.
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Post by Voy on Mar 9, 2017 19:14:27 GMT 2
yep - one of the good things about being an old fart who travelled.. Afghanistan in the 60s...hitchhiking across W
africa in the 70s - Peru etc ditto - lots of places you can't even GO now, but then again, when I was in the area VietNam was a sure no-no!
And Slow - YESS!! I think I have every book in English about the LRDG and SAS - one of the funniesst things ever is the description of getting into Tripoli with Randolph Churchill !
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Post by kuskiwi on Mar 9, 2017 19:49:43 GMT 2
Slow ...... I'm sure they would love to, however in this PC world they slide off back home or to their day jobs, work overtime to catch up, then go home to wash the filthy wet clothes. Open the morning paper or the net version and read all about the silly sods who got lost 'because the mountain looked so beautiful and NO ONE told us that it can be dangerous'. As the advt says "Yeah Right" We're a tough bunch down here and reasonably adaptable (or used to be before nanny state took over) so would make ideal LRDG ers - as long as the commander could cope with considerable insubordination and we do it our way thinking. |
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Mar 10, 2017 0:34:26 GMT 2
The journey to the West Country, starting in the wee small hours took us passed Stonehenge around dawn, and it was only a hop over the fence a few minutes walk and a clamber onto some old prostrate lumps of rock and hey presto! Not sure it was a good model to follow though. Probably not -- my (then-future) wife was arrested doing exactly that! |
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Mar 10, 2017 0:38:38 GMT 2
find them dead near where they started like the kims. there were so many articles about their romance, their beautiful kids. One of the best things I ever read on Thorn Tree was WillyTheSnout's post, more in the vein of unpaid investigative journalism than a forum post, in which he retraced the Kims' steps to debunk some of the news reporting and surmise what actually went wrong. |
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Post by tzarine on Mar 10, 2017 5:19:03 GMT 2
do you remember willys conclusion?
his wife was all over the media talking about what a great father he was
& parade the kids around
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Post by Scrubb on Mar 10, 2017 6:05:26 GMT 2
I seem to recall walking around a more or less deserted Louvre, I supposed that has changed by now. Most of the time it's pretty busy. But I used to go fairly often on Wednesday evenings when they stay open until 9:00 p.m., and in February and March and even April, it was pretty quiet for that last hour. I managed to take pictures of the Winged Victory with not a soul in them. Unless she has a soul, I mean. |
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Post by Scrubb on Mar 10, 2017 6:12:10 GMT 2
Eh. I saw the pyramids 5 years ago and was still completely blown away by the entire experience. Didn't notice any golf courses. I admit I was spoiled by the fact that we were there on election day, the first one after the "Arab spring", so tourist numbers were way, way down. But Giza has been over-run with tourists for more than 100 years - I've read descriptions of the swarms climbing it back in 1915 or so.
And the Great Wall of China was also a remarkable experience when I was there only 10 years ago.
I do find it hard to go back to most places because they are rarely just how I remembered them being, and they never seem quite as perfect the second time. The CInque Terre did get much, much busier between the first time I was there in about 1991 and the last time, in 2000. But it was still beautiful and worth visiting.
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Post by ninchursanga on Mar 10, 2017 16:49:48 GMT 2
It is easier now to travel with all the low-cost airlines and increased tourism. But there are still places that can be explored where the majority of tourists don't go.
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Mar 10, 2017 18:59:52 GMT 2
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Post by tzarine on Mar 12, 2017 7:33:29 GMT 2
thanks tilted
kati sounds pretty awful
i remember thinking how arrogant could these people be
when i first heard of the case
the highline was a nice neighborhood park. then i saw it recommended in the air france magazine.
now, it's a crowded tourist trap, complete w fake buddhist monks
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Post by Ria on Mar 13, 2017 1:15:19 GMT 2
Oh the whining of 'real travellers' about how 'tourists' have ruined everything. Call a whaaaambulance.
Everyone reminiscing about how much better things used to be usually remembering something that never was.
I for one is really happy about being able to travel to places that were a lot harder and shitload more expensive. So what if there's more tourists? Angkor Wat and Aya Sofia was still amazing, Barcelona, Prague, London was still fab etc.
Travel is no longer restricted to the rich or the hippies who could bum around without a job. I think that it's fabulous as travel will open some of those minds.
I'd love to do a toboggan run from the Great Wall. That road next to Stone Henge has been there a long time and if a golf course leave some green / unbuilt area near the pyramids, that's a good thing.
How long ago is this "better" time? There were masses of people around the Mona Lisa in 1993.
And as for going hiking unprepared that shite had always happened. I remember regularly reading about lads getting stuck on Ben Nevis as the weather changed and they were often hiking with a few 6-packs. This is going back to long before the internet was a thing. And I remember the in-laws commenting the same thing happen a long long time before that.
And I cant begin to explain how much the nannying of the language in this branch annoys me. It reminds me why impost here so rarely.
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Post by kuskiwi on Mar 13, 2017 9:25:44 GMT 2
Stupidity will always be there/here Ria. The issue for us is that our rescue service and infrastructure is only partially funded by Govt - the rest is volunteers and they are exhausted from the sudden popularity. I've stepped back from my role which was often only needed at a couple of calls annually but family members are still involved and now muttering that they can't keep up this pace - 5 over 10 days.
The places everyone mentions still give a buzz, and perhaps our memories are playing tricks Ria, as for many of us these places were first seen in the late 50's and into the 60's when it was possible to stand really close up to the Mona Lisa and admire the brush strokes (it wasn't covered when I first saw it) or even (vandals that we would be seen as now) sit on the bottom steps of the pyramids. The buzz was in our heads at seeing something we had only heard or read about - not seen frequently on TV or on the net. The Buzz last time I visited the Mona Lisa was from lots of voices admiring it before they moved on, and it could only be viewed from behind the painted line. Somehow that gives a different experience. I'm sure if we could speak in retrospect to the aristocrats who did "Grand Tours" they would be bemoaning the fact that 'mass' tourism between of that era between WWI and WWII ruined the places that they until then had considered their private play ground and even further back that Elgin, Livingstone and those of their ilk would be shaking their heads tut tutting about how we see the world now and how 'our adventures' don't have any resemblance to theirs and therefore pale into insignificance.
Thirty years on, the world will have changed again and perhaps you too may feel a little nostalgic for the ease with which you travel now ie planes are getting bigger and while it takes less hours to get there - it actually takes close to as long by the time all the current security, immigration and embarkation/disembarking protocols are met. Who knows what the future may bring for those who wish to travel or work and save hard enough to be able to do it.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 13, 2017 13:03:19 GMT 2
I was going to write something more but in the research (cough) I found something I wanted to exist but knew not of, such is the wonders of the our teleconnected world. Boss-Eyed Stereoscopic Images from this page of the website: Stereo Pictures for Cross-Eyed ViewingHere are a couple of examples:   If you have trouble seeing a central 3D image, stretch out a finger in front of the line separating the two images and focussing on the finger, yours or one you have borrowed, draw it slowly back about two thirds of the way towards your eyes until a stable small floating 3D image appears, concentrate on that and lose the finger. These image pairs are like old fashioned stereoscope cards but with the two images transposed so you don't need a viewer. Try this with stereoscope cards and it can get disturbing as a false perspective is created which can cause background objects to float in the foreground.
I was going to write about new technology and telepresence but got captivate, it is so nice to be easily pleased. |
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 13, 2017 13:19:28 GMT 2
And I cant begin to explain how much the nannying of the language in this branch annoys me. It reminds me why impost here so rarely
I am sorry if I am guilty. Perhaps you could give a fuller explanation as we desperately need more posts.
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Post by Baz Faz on Mar 13, 2017 13:31:37 GMT 2
Reading Ria's backposts I realise it is ProBoards' nannying that annoys her. Yes, it is nannying but nothing more.
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Mar 13, 2017 17:32:30 GMT 2
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Post by Ria on Mar 13, 2017 23:50:49 GMT 2
The FigJam is on the same platform and I can write shite without the e and it doesn't change it to pooping.
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Post by Ria on Mar 13, 2017 23:52:45 GMT 2
There are 5 billion more people on earth today than in 1950 so if course it's more people around sites now when travel isn't just for the rich. And it's the people who sat and climbed the pyramids that caused the damage that prevent us now to do the same. So you got a buzz from something I can't do because you could - good for you.
Barcelona was very different in 2007 than in 1996 but it was still amazing. I didn't need to add a whine about how much better it was back then. Because it wasn't. It was just different.
What's next - complaining about how all those high London buildings are ruining the shot of Tower of London or why is Windsor Castle so close to the motorway?
Having said that I'm rushing to go to Cuba before the Americans ruin it. I just don't want to see Maccas or Starbucks in Havana but not everyone would see that as a bad thing.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 14, 2017 0:16:33 GMT 2
I think most people on this (and other associated) forum (fora/forums) agree with your point of view, Ria!
Obviously, there are people like me, who are very good at complaining ... so we complain ;-)
One thing I won't complain about the passing of time and large number of tourists, is that if I were to travel across India again, I could book all my train tickets online, whereas twenty years ago, you had to go see the station manager and hope he'd put the single ladies in the family carriage. It took time to personally go to the station with passport, etc so now I just want to go back to India.
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Post by shrjeff on Mar 14, 2017 9:21:59 GMT 2
annie puts her finger on it: today it is easy to make one's own arrangements...
just went to cuba and reserved an apartment in a great location in central havana through airbnb... you don't have to rush, ria: the cuban economy sucks big time and there is no real tourist infrastructure except at fancy hotels, restaurants and beach resorts... i figure it'll take years to create one and even the cubans think that anyone who goes to the real hotels rather than the casa particulare (rooms or apartments in a private home) is a sucker... there are local agencies which market the casas but i got a bad taste from them. now that airbnb is marketing there it's easy peasy... and one can get somewhat objective feedback from previous clients... the difference between cuba and burma when we were there a couple of years ago is that in burma there is no private lodging so the existing hotels were being overwhelmed by the uptick in tourism... in cuba private people have a great incentive in order to get some hard currency... and while we paid $25 plus the airbnb fee of $5 for a total of $30 a night for a studio apartment, a doctor's salary is $25 a MONTH (teachers only make $15 a month)... so you can see how the typical cuban is interested in people patronizing the private economy...
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