I have fixed myself on a 10 euros budget. I have lived for a couple of euros a day, basically free. But I have also lived for 20 or 25 euros a day, which is very easy in Asia. With other words consuming careless, as long as if you don’t get drunk and wasted all the time, since that costs lots of money and not have the need to do every single thing you can do as a tourist and fall for every single tourist trap. I think most of the backpackers live with that budget easily. I have to admit that one of the ‘extremes’ is an easier way of living and traveling then the middle way. I am pretty sure this applies to the life of a middle class as well, in any country or culture.
If I live with a 25 euros budget, I do not need to think to much about the money. And when I live without money, money simply becomes worthless and useless. But with the 10 euros budget, I have to constantly balance and compromise. I have to compare and think about every single thing. Do I want it? Do I need it? Is it worth it’s money? If I order food in a restaurant I think about the price and have an idea on how much it can cost to fit in my budget. Every once in a while I overspend and enjoy the luxury. Other times I just simply think I do not need to have that Western bacon, an egg is fine. I like to enjoy a beer, but I don’t need to have to consume 4, they will taste the same each time. And if I drink it every single day I might turn into an alcoholic. Lot of European travelers need their beer to feel fulfilled. As a Belgian, the ultimate way of enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon would be on a terrace of a bar with an alcoholic beverage, beer or wine. This we bring with us when we travel. So most travelers prefer to consume a beer in this tropical weather, and live their life the fullest. Living nor poor, nor rich is not an easy life. I fixed my budget by choice. And I regularly have to remind myself of that. I can simply do whatever, but I refuse to. It shows all aspects of life. I am a student. Sometimes I realize that I am too much focused on that stupid budget and have to remind myself again that money is worthless. That I don’t need stuff and luxury. If you travel without money it is not a question wether you eat Western food, it is not a question wether you do this or that tourist attraction. You just don’t. Are you living a less interesting life? A less good life? Are you living life the fullest? For me it does feel like that. I feel careless and free. Not craving, clinging, attachment to this or that. I feel bad for consuming life and culture. I don’t like the feeling that I get when I pay to see a hill tribe or for the entrance of a cave, or a temple, or the beautiful scenery. I am not getting any service out of it. This things are natural and supposed to be free. Tourism can be so ugly to me. And I do not mean the savages drinking and partying on the beach or sex tourism. I mean the greed it brings along. Our consuming culture brought with us to the ‘underdeveloped poor’ world. I hate it when I hear or see people talking, thinking, behaving like those people in the hills are having the less better life. I refuse to simply believe that. Their is a difference with living an existence with all it’s aspects of life and only living to survive. My favorite quote: “Life deprived of beauty is not worthy of being called human.” by Luis Barragan. As long as we can smile and enjoy things in life, as simple as they can be, we are not only surviving. I am not missing out on life if I don’t see the things on the UNESCO world heritage list. I don’t miss out on the culture either. As long as I live an existence from place to place I will learn from those places and come across their culture, their way of living. I just try to not be blind to it. I have to remind myself that those tourist attractions don’t matter, and they might agitate me because I am trying to stick to that stupid budget and comparing those attractions to others and their price tags. Is this worth this money? I am putting price tags on things. I can get agitated when I notice people become greedy. As my mom says a lot of times, these people don’t have respect for tourists. I am convinced we tourist are not respectful either. Jeff and me like a place we visit based on the people and how they treat us. I talk in terms of a ‘real place’ or a ‘normal place’, when the place is not ruined and ruled by tourists. Sometimes tourists (or locals, or people in a society apart form tourism) consume the culture so much that it stops existing naturally. That we have to preserve it, just as we keep Panda’s alive and save them from extinction. We don’t allow them to grow and evolve anymore. Things change naturally. And it can be sad. Ring neck people intrige us, but we look at it with disgust. How can you do that to young children? At the same time those people keep their custom because of tourism, it provides them an income. Places with a small population that turned into a tourist attraction, have no local industries anymore apart from tourism, or they are moving to the outskirts of the city so that the city center is full of hotels and restaurants providing the tourists. Tourism provides jobs and an income, brings modernization and a certain standerd of living that tourists are demanding. It brings good and evil. It changes things, definitely, in a way of no return. It is an industry and a business, all those ecotourism, ugly tourism and labeled kinds of tourism are bullshit. It is nothing more then making a fashion statement: “I am a vegetarian.” “I am a feminist.” “Love and peace.” It is pure advertisement of the tourist industry for us to not take responsibility and simply admit it has a foot print on the life of people. Without thinking and reasoning these things become meaningless and not the truth. Any kind of tourism has an impact on the culture and consumes the culture. You are not innocent as a tourist. You can only admit it and be aware of it. Understand the consequences, it is so obvious. People will treat you different depending on their interests in you, as a person or as a walking dollar sign. It is wrong to blame ugly tourism and not admit any form of tourism has an impact. It is being blind, to not feel or take responsibility. Blaming the others is pointless. It is as being in a war and saying he did this so it is my right to take revenge. Non of the sides are innocent. Extremes and opposites exist to keep each other in balance, exclude one and the other does not exist anymore. They are not independent form each other. Being in a world full of opposites you have to balance and compromise. And take responsibility. I need to remind myself regularly that I don’t need to be agitated and angry with people and that money is worthless. Countries can have debts and still continue existing. I have to stop putting price tags on things and compare them to one another. But simply enjoy the moment of existing. Enjoy the world in any form, ugly and pretty. I am still a student. I am balancing between living for free and therefor not feel independent of a money system and feel some notion of freedom and spend money and again feel free from the money system. I have enough money, I am not poor. If the money runs out I work again, living in Asia is cheap right? I can live like a queen? Most of the time I am the middle class, feeling stuck and agitated. Not free. Also that is by choice.
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