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ortho158
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# Posted: 6 May 07 17:55
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Bobkati made recently a comment on this pic, taken in 1976:
and said that she would like to be on such an empty beach. So, I looked at Google Earth, just to see what it looked like today ....
30 years ago, there were kilometers of beach and jungle (without any building whatsoever), between Club Med (where the pic was taken), and Cancun. Apparently, it looks like this today (pic from Lurie, on Flickr):
Not far from Club Med, we found some Mayan ruins while walking along the beach. There was no signpost indicating that there were ruins, and they were hidden in the jungle.
The ruins are still there, but the jungle has disappeared (as well as the mosquitoes, I suppose) and you can see another hotel in the background.Pic from Paul Mannix, on Flickr:
When we went to Chichen-Itza,we landed on an airstrip in the jungle, wich looked like this:
The metallic tower was the only construction, and I really don't know what was its purpose. Today, it looks like this (by Simon Hardy, on Flickr):
So, don't go there if you want some privacy! I would rather suggest that you go to Patara, on the Lycean coast of Turkey: 17 km of protected beach (because of nesting turtles), with only two accces roads (one at each end); and some footpathes through the pine forest to get right to the middle of the beach.
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zerega
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# Posted: 7 May 07 18:39
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Yes, this was paradise 30 years ago. Pity unique places do disappear and seem to take on an uniform look throughout the world. And get crowded, especially in Asia.
But this is a very European point of view. I admit it is also mine. I miss those picturesque places, a few lucky ones could enjoy (I especially think for Laos and Vietnam 15 years ago, Angkor only a few years ago, China in the 80ies, etc). At that time, European and North Americans were the only ones who could afford travelling to far away places for leisure even if you only had an everage income.
Now many other regions of the world are catching up in spare income.
I was shocked to share some once lonely Asian temples with literary tens of thousands other people. Simply too much, it was crowded like a department store at a clearance sale. The athmosphere of the site was completely gone.
But frankly, it is their temple site, and i'm glad they take interest in their history. It pays for the bills of sustaining those temples that were doomed to fall apart until a few years ago. They would have been a distant memory on lovely holiday images for those few European tourists in a few decade or so.
I presume the people of Cancun and Mexico are glad for the extra tourist dollars. Being a mere fisherman completely ruins your health until you're 50. If I'd been born there I'd prefer to have a job in the booming service industry of Cancun anytime. And would be glad that the shabby landing strip is now a modern airport.
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sercas72
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# Posted: 7 May 07 18:54
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If you want to discover a REAL mexican culture, DON'T GO TO CANCUN......
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zerega
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# Posted: 7 May 07 18:56 - Edited by: zerega
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European Shangri La lost:
This transport business of 1999 is done by modern trucks in 2006
Imagine at least 100 people on this plaza alone, as it is often now.
It only looks this picturesque because of 40+ years of incredible bad governance. 80 kms to the west few people would think of driving this pile of scrap metal.
You can't see the 400 other people climbing this place at this very time the picture was shot. An incredible scrambling for the 1st row. Thankfully, no one was flying past the view with a flottilla of a dozen helicopters, as some folks of the military junta did so a day later.
I guess the passengers preferred the creature comforts of a modern Mercedes bus instead this vintage Chevrolet. But i wouldn't have taken a picture if it had been a Mercedes bus, i commute on those to work every day back home.
ditto for this 1905 vintage passenger car. After a 14 hour ride for a mere 200 km you understand why the 'indegenous' people take the bus (a Merc in this case)
This is catenary territory now. Double as fast and you won't choke in the tunnels.
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ortho158
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# Posted: 8 May 07 15:00
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@zerega: Thanks for your comments, Stefan, and I must say that I share most of them, but I would like to clarify here what I meant.
I am certainly not in favor of elitist tourism, where rich tourists have nice unspoiled places only for them. I reminds me of a trip (again, a long time ago), in Sri Lanka, when we met Veddhas in the jungle, pityingly posing for tourists with their bows and arrows. I was ashamed to be there.
In the case of Chichen-Itza airport, it's probably better that they have one now, if it improves air traffic safety. But for Cancun, I think that it is an irresponsible contempt for natural resources.
It is possible to give some benefit of tourism to the local people, without going to such a degradation of the environment. The first time we went to Bodrum (10 years ago), it was already very touristy, but acceptable. But Bodrum peninsula was already being covered by newly-built appartments. There was a village there, Gumusluk, where motor traffic was prohibited, as well as new constructions. But there were many tourists, because there were a lot of rooms and houses to let, nice restaurants, ... Unfortunately, you could already see the top of the new constructions being built on the other side of the hills surrounding the village.
And then, they built an airport. I hope that it did not influcence badly Gumusluk, but for the rest of region, Bodrum has become a paradise for disco addicts (they even have floating disco's).
I would tend to say that the only nice places are those which are not very accessible. In my first post, I talked about Patara: it is nearly 3h away from the nearest airport. When we went to Kas (also on the Lycean coast of Turkey), we spent more time in the bus than on the airplane.
Of course, there are exceptions. Karpathos (in Greece) has a airport capable to accept charters (I mean, the landing strip, not the building), but, when we were there, they were refusing charter flight from some countries because they had not been very happy with the way their nationals behaved. And there is also Tabarka (in Tunisia), where they built an extensive touristic infrastructure, hoping that a festival held there in the early 70's, would boost tourism. It didn't, but the place is quite nice.
I am not against progress, but I would like more respect (control) for our environment) in touristic developments.
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zerega
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# Posted: 9 May 07 16:08 - Edited by: zerega
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Nothing to clarify, Alain, your images show a genuine interest in those areas and people. Obviously it is a topic that has no black and white but many 'grey' situations, problems and solutions in between.
If you run the tourism department of a country, you can choose from a lot of examples:
- mediterranean holiday machines with millions of red skinned and pissed British, Skandinavians and Germans
- the rather successful backpacker policy of Australia and New Zealand (a stark contrast to drunk Australian yobbo backpackers in the Hofbraeu tent at the Oktoberfest)
- backpacker paradises in SE Asia that again resemble mediterranean holiday machines safe for alternative lodging, music, dressing styles and drugs
- the limited entry tourist allowance of buthan allowing for a gentle development
- the prepare-for-a-billion-tourists approach of China that includes rebuilding historic temples bigger, wider, higher, brighter, shinier and newer with reinforced concrete and industrial made interiour, bling-bling and religious accessories (seen already in 1988)
- no tourism policy at all
- ...
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bobkati
Member
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# Posted: 9 May 07 23:25
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My first studies were tourism and hotel management... everything has a good and a bad side; in case of tourism is that the most well known places in the world are overcrowded and the joy of visiting them for their atmosphere has gone long time ago... it starts to be as a race... to achieve more; like a list of the place we want to see in our lives... no matter if we enjoy. I'm quite sad because of this...
I guess that because of this huge mass tourism, people should start to have basic education of tourism in the high schools, such as maths or literature... to realise that the importance shouldn't come together with the allert of extinction.
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