The study

            My latest big travel experience has brought me to Norway. While the country itself was my purpose, it was not the tourism I was specifically coming for, but the academic credits. I lived in Bergen, which they call the rainiest city in Europe (in my experience that wasn’t quite true), to follow marine biology courses at the university. That doesn’t mean I did not do tourist-activities. I think it even allowed me to experience the culture more thoroughly. Studying in another country – and hence doing tourism in a completely different way – has learnt me a great deal. It taught me not only academic skills and knowledge, but also about being part of a different culture. In that way, learning is not only a reason to travel, but travelling as a reason to learn.

            Coming month I will travel to St Eustatius as part of a research team with the goal to invest marine biodiversity. Going to an area of the world I have not explored yet, it will be a completely different experience. I cannot wait to pick up my bag again and get in that travel-flow again.  

Enjoying sunset on a research vessel during one of my trips on the North Sea I did for my studies.

The sustainability

That I met a lot of nice people on my journeys does not mean I liked all of them - sex tourists least of all. This type of tourism I was unfortunately encountered with quite often in the southern part of Cambodia, where middle-aged men could “buy” young local girls, consuming them as if they were an object. Not something I regard as sustainable tourism, meaning that it doesn’t leave a positive impact on the environment or society.            

There are also more sustainable ways of tourism in Asia of course, volunteer tourism being one of them. Activities such as teaching English, or helping to clean up the environment might not have a huge impact on the entire country, but locally can affect people in a positive way.

In North Norway, Sámi tourism is expanding sector of indigenous tourism. The Sámi are a nomadic people originally inhabiting the arctic region. Traditionally they are involved in reindeer herding, but nowadays this often is not sufficient to provide for all livelihood. Tourism provides many Sámi with jobs and enables them to preserve their cultural heritage, but it might also result in frustration by the way they are handled by the tourism industry. When I met a Sámi woman, who lived near the Lofoten with her reindeer herd and also ran a tourist-company, she didn’t seem irritated. “The tourists have fun with the reindeer sleigh, and we have fun because the tourists look funny”, she told me.

Tourism should be sustainable, but the question is how. I think treating each other as persons, not as “local”, “tourist” or “object”, treating each other the same way you would like to be treated yourself, is a small step in the right direction.   

A Sámi woman feeding her reindeers. 

The people

During my travels I have become acquainted with many different kinds of people, both tourists and locals. I have made friends all over the world with whom I shared many stories, cultural differences, conversations and cheerful laughs. They often offered me a different kind of view on the world and how life can be lived. One of my strangest meetings was when I was invited by locals for a party. When I arrived, it turned out to be a funeral party. I was a little bit shocked, but the life-size cardboard statue in the garden of the deceased person told me it was not a joke. The party was crowded with people who were enjoying food and no one seemed particularly sad – it all felt very strange to me. My friends explained to me that this was their way of honouring the deceased. The more people that commemorated their friend, the better chance his soul would have for a blissful next life. With such a party, they actually give the deceased person a guaranteed ticket to a happy reincarnation. Sometimes the family even invites a stripper to funeral parties to attract more people. The feeling of absurdity faded away and I started to understand that, though very different from how it is done in Europe, this was just another way to grieve. A perfect example of how exchanging culture with other people helped me develop a better understanding about the social world and came to criticize apparent truths (this is called “social constructionism”; for those interested in the concept). 

A very nice way to meet locals – whether you travel alone or together – is couchsurfing. The concept is very simple: people offer you their couch to sleep (or bed…living room…palace) when you visit their country and you can do the same when you are in your home town. It is more than a place to spend the night though; the host often takes up the role of tour guide. I went couchsurfing when I was travelling in the polar circle of Norway and stayed both with students and families. The best one was when I could stay on a cruise ship. I have spent a great deal of time with my hosts watching whales and hunting for northern lights.  

The friendships do not always last, but the people sure do brighten up your trip and the new experiences are the best souvenirs. 

A local party with local drinks – including dried snake. 

The story

Stories are an innate part of people. Every culture has its own forms of myths, epics and poems. Going to Norway, I thought I would learn a lot about Vikings and familiarize with the Edda. I was mistaken; the only time I encountered the Edda, was when I passed a big ship in the industrial site of the harbour that was named after the prose. Sometimes myths are a bit harder to find in the modern world.

Despite that, travelling is never without stories. Every person has his or her own tales – tales they like to tell. Tourists naturally have a narrativistic approach. Having a good story to tell is not one of my main reasons for travelling, but being part of a story is.

To communicate with my friends and family back home while living in Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Norway, I kept a travel blog. Perhaps a quite postmodernistic approach – due to the central role of internet and mass-communication – but it is very effective when living far away.

In addition I wrote a travel diary. Though this was not meant to communicate with anyone, I wrote it (without the intention) as if it were supposed to be read by someone else. With descriptions of cities and food and richly illustrated with maps, tickets and cards it almost appears to be a travel guide. But then a personal travel guide, with my own stories. When I read my diaries now, on a rainy day, I remember every little detail of it and I can drift off – dreaming of exotic places and stunning fjords.

A collage from bits and pieces of my travel diaries

The food

Having to choose a travel destination for my first outside-Europe experience was easy: Asia - because of the food. I was not disappointed: I have spent hours wandering along markets, tasting all that looked different. I have tried everything – from delicious saffron pancakes and curries to snake, beetles and things I cannot even put a name on. Apart from the food itself, it is the street life that attracts me. Everywhere there are buzzy, little foodstalls along the road, with people working and children playing. Social life takes place on the streets, which is something that is not obviously present in the Netherlands. Travelling makes it possible to change ones surroundings. Gazing upon the “other”, as John Urry defined. These differences with my home country are one of the key reasons to travel.

When studying in Norway, I felt I could live in this beautiful country for the rest of my life – were it not for the food. The cheese was tasteless, the oranges were as dry as the Sahara desert and adding to that: everything was extremely expensive. At such moments, I realise how much food can add to the experience of a journey. Food has memories and gives extra flavour to journey – literally. A piece of fresh baked French bread with a bit of salted butter will always remind me of good times with my family, while papayas provide me with an image of the tropical forests in Sri Lanka; both turn a smile on my face. Again, this is something that is not present at home. When trying to cook the same dish you ate on a journey never tastes the same. It misses the important ingredient that is called “travelling”. 

The market in Cambodia.

Want to try a different recipe? Sweet sticky rice with mango is often eaten as a sweet snack or delicious desert.

   

The nature

As a becoming biologist, I have always wanted to see animals and nature during my travels: the spiders and snakes in the jungle, the elephants, the sea turtles and whales. I enjoyed starry nights on an island, with the bioluminescent plankton in the water and the dark skyline of palm trees. I climbed many mountains on holidays with my family, breathing the fresh air. I explored creeks and bays while snorkelling or scuba diving. Ever since I knew how to swim, I went searching for crabs and gathering shells. Perhaps the biologist has always been inside me, but it was during my travels I really came to know who I was and what I wanted to study.  The feeling of “going back to nature” – which is a quite typical idea of Romanticism - makes me at the same time feel as “going back to myself”. Travelling is part of shaping our identity. 

Whether they are furry friends or snappy crabs – I always feel the urge to study them closely. 

The memory

Some people in Sri Lanka drank a lot, which was a sad thing to see. One of these occasions I remember very well. I was sitting in a bus and we stopped near a liquor store. In front of it was an old man. He was insanely drunk, pouring the alcohol straight from the bottle in his mouth. I wanted to capture the figure, but the moment I lifted my camera, I looked at his face. I saw his red nose, the rag covering his hair, his grey beard - and I felt sad. I didn’t want to take a picture anymore, because I realised it would ruin his privacy. So we drove on in the bus, and even though I do not have a picture, I still remember.

Although photos are nice to have as a memory, it pays to be considerate towards the “object” of your photo – because people become objects if you catch them with the camera. It emphasises a power relation, especially in the case of rich Western tourist vs. the poorer native inhabitant.

The incident with the drunkard left a great impression. Afterwards I have always asked permission when I wanted to take a photo of a person. People actually always agreed; sometimes smiling a bit awkwardly, sometimes with enthusiasm. One time I was on my bike, cycling around the ruins of Angkor city, as I passed rice paddy fields were locals were working. The colour palette was composed of perfect emerald greens, almost calling out to me to take a picture. I just walked into the field and asked the people if I could take pictures. We ended up having a really nice conversation – if something in half English, half Khmer and by means of hands and gestures can be called a conversation. It is one of the pictures with my best memories, which shows that pictures can be taken in a sustainable way.

The picture I took of one of the locals working in the emerald green rice paddy field after our conversation. 

If you want to know more about pictures, read David Turton’s article in Anthropology Today (2004) about how photographs effects the Mursi culture in Ethiopia. 

The senses

Gazing over a Norwegian fjord

Tourists, me included, do sightseeing. When my eyes perceive an image of steep mountains or a beautiful temple, I look at it in awe: I gaze. It is something that John Urry defined as “the tourist gaze”. Even though the emphasis is always on seeing, experiencing travelling is way more than seeing: it is offering something new to all your senses.

Our “gaze” is not neutral. It is filtered by culture and social experiences. We perceive images through filtered sunglasses. We see what we expect. The same counts for the rest of the information that reaches our brain through the other senses. When something is red, we expect it to taste hot. The food in Sri Lanka was super spicy, but when I saw a sweet-sour looking curry with pineapples I expected anything but hot. I took a double serving on my plate and started to eat. The first mouthful was hell. The curry was not as sweet as I thought it would be. It took me a while to get used to it, but in the end, I even did chilli in my breakfast. I changed my “gaze” of taste. Perhaps what tourists really do is sightsensing.

Of course tourists themselves are also a sensation and are often gazed upon by locals. When I took a bus from the busy west to the more remote eastern part of Sri Lanka, all the people sat backwards on their chair to gaze upon us the entire way. Four hours long. Each person has a tourist gaze at particular places and during specific times. But perhaps, when we come home after a long journey, we look upon all the familiar sights with refreshed senses and sense things we did not notice before. We bring home a bit of the “gaze”.

Want to know more about the different types of tourist gazes? Read John Urry’s “The Tourist Gaze”.  

The experience

The little monk

One of the things that my travels have learned me is that the greatest tourist experience can come from the most unexpected moments. When backpacking through Cambodia you cannot exclude a visit to the ancient Angkor (which means “Holy city” in the Khmer language). Crowded by tourists as they are, the ruins still prove to be a beautiful and impressive sight. But when I rethink my journey, a small temple on an island on the Mekong River might have left a greater impression. Not so much the temple itself – I can barely remember the temple – but the encounter with the people that lived there. Especially the little, young monk with his orange robe and his shiny baldness, that ran in front of us, with his happy smile. Leading us the way to the temple, lighting incense for us and saying a prayer in front of the – somewhat decaying – Buddha statue, urging us with his hand to do the same. Kneeling in front of Buddha, I felt part of a culture and a ritual that was even more ancient than Angkor.   

This authenticity – experiencing “real” culture – is something all tourists are searching for according to Dean McCannell. Quite a generalisation I would say; it does not take into account other forms of tourism and definitely cannot be applied to all tourists - but it does apply to me. When going to an area, I prefer to travel at slow pace. Taking my time to absorb the culture and the impressions. This allows me to search for the “core” of the country and find that authenticity, instead of the pretence of authenticity that is often performed for tourists.

The Sri Lankan Kandy dance performance is a perfect example of staged authenticity. The show is only visited by tourists – needless to say I went as well. It was pretty, but it did not feel like a thing done by many Sri Lankans. A completely different story was the ‘’Devil dance” I had witnessed in a small village: I was invited by my local friends and was the only non-native person standing amidst the entire village that had come to watch. The dance was held on account of a sick woman and the goal was simple: the dancers would dance all night to chase away the “devils” that lived inside the woman. At one point they got a rooster – ready to sacrifice I thought. It turned out only to be a sign of good luck. The sick woman was put into a trance and started to dance as well. The next day she was better. All in all, they performed a marvellous show, with fire, beating drums and frantic dancing. I would not have wanted to miss this for the world…. But the thing is; I also did not want to miss the Kandy dance show. Or the Angkor city. Both authentic and faked - they all add to my tourist experiences.          

To learn more about early theoretical explanations of tourism and staged authenticity, read MacCannell, D. (1973). Staged authenticity arrangements of social space in tourist settings….and don’t forget to watch the devil dancers in the video :-) 

The feel

One thing was sure when I first arrived in Asia: I did not feel like a tourist. I used to associate the word “tourist” with the negative image of a sunburned person on the beach who takes a thousand (ugly) pictures. In that case “tourist” is associated with only a specific type of tourism: mass-tourism. And I did not want to be associated with that. In contradiction, the word “traveller” is usually associated with a positive image of someone who tries to become part of the local culture instead of taking part in superficial activities, someone who is searching for unique experiences and explores the unwalked path.

Then what was I, tourist or traveller? I did not spend my time sunbathing on the beach and I tried to wander of the road (except on those places in Cambodia with the ‘’watch out for bombs”-signs). On the other hand I did not want to miss out on all the famous places and like any other tourist I had brought my camera with me to take a thousand pictures (if they are ugly can be part of another discussion). I guess what mostly made me feel a different kind of tourist, was hanging out with local people and feeling part of the in-crowd.

A more neutral way to define a tourist, ‘a person who travels outside of his normal environment for a period of more than 24 hours’, also fails to explain all the different forms tourism can take. From clubbing and shopping to history and sports – it is all tourism. A traveller is just one of the many personifications of a tourist. Call me a tourist, call me a traveller; in the end it is about how you feel yourself during a journey. In my case, travelling makes me feel alive; and that is the reason I take up my backpack every time and go out in that world.

A caricature I created to illustrate tourist-stereotypes

Want to know more? Read “‘Who is a tourist?’: A critical review” by Scott McCabe (2005) for an account on the identification of the tourist. For more information about the diversification of tourism and a history of tourism, have a look at the chapter on tourism by Edensor (2009) in the International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography (pages 301-312).