Backpackers Are Great Asset For Chiang Mai

[Ulysses G.]

it sounds like some of these types of backpackers may be the future upscale expats ruining places like CM, by "needing" the comforts of their western lifestyle like large houses, pools, big satellite dishes, 2 cars (minimum), maids, preferring western foods, pricy restaurants, gated communities etc.

Don't forget the expats "ruining" CM with running water, Western toilets, air-conditioning, hot water showers and TV!

[beb]

Just to put things in perspective, when westerners talk about a place being ruined, it usually involves economic development that the locals really want. I'm guilty as well of bemoaning the loss of some quaint outpost that's been over run by tourists but then I have to remind myself that developing countries actually want to develop in spite of my personal appreciation of everybody living like it's 1900.

They aren't here for our personal entertainment.

[uptheos]

At one hotel I forced them to take Burmese money,

Yeah right,

Hotels are under strict instructions not to take Kyat from foreigners only dollars and they have to report a list of names and amount received every night, to a local government place.

The official government rate at that time would have been set at around a ridiculous 4 Kyat to discourage exchange and the blackmarket exchange around a thousand or more. So if you had hundreds of thousands of Kyat. they knew it must have been obtained illegally.

Edited August 4, 2012 by uptheos

[hellodolly]

At one hotel I forced them to take Burmese money,

Yeah right,

Hotels are under strict instructions not to take Kyat from foreigners only dollars and they have to report a list of names and amount received every night, to a local government place.

The official government rate at that time would have been set at around a ridiculous 4 Kyat to discourage exchange and the blackmarket exchange around a thousand or more. So if you had hundreds of thousands of Kyat. they knew it must have been obtained illegally.

No actually on the way in they took baht it was on the way out where I had to force them to take Burmese money. As for hundreds of thousands of Kyat they would have had to do a lot more business than what they were doing and not pay the staff. In Monglar all that was excepted was Chinese money. That included the food stalls.

At the hotel I did not have enough Chinese money to pay the deposit for the key's to our two rooms the clerk just shook his head when I showed him a handful of Bahts and a handful of Burmese money. There was a fellow watching the whole procedure and when I showed him a $100 American bill the clerk was going to say no but the stranger nodded his head OK and took it as a deposit on the room keys.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for back packers in Burma outside of the major attractions.

[femi fan]

Just to put things in perspective, when westerners talk about a place being ruined, it usually involves economic development that the locals really want. I'm guilty as well of bemoaning the loss of some quaint outpost that's been over run by tourists but then I have to remind myself that developing countries actually want to develop in spite of my personal appreciation of everybody living like it's 1900.

They aren't here for our personal entertainment.

No, not for this westerner any rate. I don't bemoan economic development, but i do bemoan environmental destruction that arises from rampant cutting down of trees and hillsides and paddy fields, and all that lives in their mini-ecologies, to make way for haphazard blocks of concrete being erected. There's a huge difference between considered and town-planned development, and the profiteering grab for land and resources that destroy the previously sustainable lifestyles of the locals.

And that's generally what happens, especially when the big companies come along and have only an eye for what money they can exploit from the situation. To see what's happened to samui can only be described as tragic, and does not represent 'economic development' in any way. Economic exploitation and a desecration of sustainable living in a natural wonderland.

And i'm not sure you can speak on behalf of whole developing countries and what 'they' want. Most people i speak to see benefits and losses from their previous lifestyles. And eventually when all the insane practices of plunging into a consumptive lifestyle let loose on the locals, they'll be wishing for old times, just like many westerners do nowadays.

Chiang Mai can only end up being almost as big as bangkok with it's three ring roads. The only thing that can stop it will be worldwide chaos and financial meltdown. Right now new housing projects spring up like horny mushrooms, all western-style, and all leading to that homogenous style of 'modern' living. More and more malls and shopping plazas coming, all urging the population to do their own exploiting of the world's resources.

We need sustainable living practices. Backpackers help protect this.

[beb]

Just to put things in perspective, when westerners talk about a place being ruined, it usually involves economic development that the locals really want. I'm guilty as well of bemoaning the loss of some quaint outpost that's been over run by tourists but then I have to remind myself that developing countries actually want to develop in spite of my personal appreciation of everybody living like it's 1900.

They aren't here for our personal entertainment.

No, not for this westerner any rate. I don't bemoan economic development, but i do bemoan environmental destruction that arises from rampant cutting down of trees and hillsides and paddy fields, and all that lives in their mini-ecologies, to make way for haphazard blocks of concrete being erected. There's a huge difference between considered and town-planned development, and the profiteering grab for land and resources that destroy the previously sustainable lifestyles of the locals.

And that's generally what happens, especially when the big companies come along and have only an eye for what money they can exploit from the situation. To see what's happened to samui can only be described as tragic, and does not represent 'economic development' in any way. Economic exploitation and a desecration of sustainable living in a natural wonderland.

And i'm not sure you can speak on behalf of whole developing countries and what 'they' want. Most people i speak to see benefits and losses from their previous lifestyles. And eventually when all the insane practices of plunging into a consumptive lifestyle let loose on the locals, they'll be wishing for old times, just like many westerners do nowadays.

Chiang Mai can only end up being almost as big as bangkok with it's three ring roads. The only thing that can stop it will be worldwide chaos and financial meltdown. Right now new housing projects spring up like horny mushrooms, all western-style, and all leading to that homogenous style of 'modern' living. More and more malls and shopping plazas coming, all urging the population to do their own exploiting of the world's resources.

We need sustainable living practices. Backpackers help protect this.

Everybody yearns for th the simpler life of their youth. All one has to do is glance through their FB page to see people harking back to the days when they played in the woods and drank from water hoses etc to see examples. That's a past that will nver return. But the fact of the matter is, given the choice, most people around the world want greater access to "stuff" and electricity to run that stuff. And money to buy it. So a job to make that money is good.

Sure, a bikers toy drive is nice but I think that the villagers would much rather have the resources to go to the store and buy their kids the toys they want, not have them given to them by the great, white father.

Now that doesn't require wholesale destruction of the forrest or ripping down mountains. There's a middle way.

But the point is, a LOT of people, Femi fan specifically excluded, do wish for a romanticized past for this and other developing areas, conveniently forgetting the negatives like extreme poverty, disease, lack of education, higher death rate etc.

I've LOVED my visits to ancient sites before they became tourist meccas. Given the choice I would rather see, and walk around things before barricades have to be flung up to protect the sites from the masses. So what I have to do is just try to keep visiting different places and realize that they are inevitably going to change. That's progress.

Edited August 5, 2012 by beb