After 23 days dedicated to monks and "spiritual development" I find myself surrounded by temples of consumption. It's weird, there are very few Thai people in this little beach village and they don't even greet you with "Sawasdee", they say "Hello". I don't like it. Even though I don't know many Thai words, I think that learning how to say "hello" and "thank you" in the language of a country is the least anybody can do to show some respect.
This place doesn't feel real. It's like a theme park, a genuine tourist ghetto, with all the downsides. It's just shops, restaurants and bars. Plus tour operators, selling you day tours to the "sights". I always admire how people all over the world are able to sell you the least interesting things as THE "must-see" sights. So you pay a lot of money and then you are dragged from one "sight" to another, to take photos in the manner of "I've been here" and off you go to the next spot of interest. But there's apparently no other simple way to see the beautiful clear waters and the coral reefs of the Andaman sea, you just have to go with all the tourists and enjoy your 30 minutes of snorkelling.
Yet these thirty minutes are a real highlight. Not sure it's worth to pay 30 Euro for the day tour, including the worst lunch I ever had in Thailand (I kind of expected that though), but swimming with "Nemo" and his friends was a real eye-opener. At first I was afraid, as I don't really like all these sea creatures and the idea that I'll be in the same water as them didn't really seem so great. But once in the water I was overwhelmed by the creativity and imagination of Mother Nature. And then I got sad, when I thought how mankind is slowly but surely destroying this little paradise with our industrial development caring for nobody but our own profit.
Maybe everybody should get to see this with their own eyes, maybe then everybody would develop some respect for the environment. These are living creatures with the same right to life as we have.
Of course, if everybody and their mother came here it would mean even more pollution, so even if it were technically doable, it's not a viable option. Somehow, however, mankind needs to grow up and take more interest in the life around us.
It reminded me of a meeting I attended before Christmas. EU Fisheries Council, where ministers were haggling over quotas - how much fish can be caught in a season. Arguing, that the quotas need to be high and higher to preserve the traditional way of life of the fishermen's communities. What a ridiculous argument! The traditional fishermen caught as much fish as was needed for their community, and the stocks never got depleted because some rich people in some landlocked country needed the delicacy that is blue fin tuna. Well, if these "traditional" fishermen continue with overfishing, they will soon destroy their "tradition" by themselves.
Just like with the tropical fruit. Of course, we all love our bananas and oranges and even more exotic fruits. But if you ever tried these fruits in their region of origin, you know that what we get in Europe is just a poor knock-off of the delicious original. I once bought a pomelo at home, after trying it in Vietnam. It tasted like nothing. Whereas here in South-East Asia it's juicy, tasty, delicious. Why do we import it, leaving a huge carbon footprint, if it doesn't even come close to the taste it's supposed to have?
Yet if we stop importing and consuming tropical fruits for example, we are putting jobs at risk in the countries of origin. So there's no easy solution as in, let's boycott all that's imported. I guess, it all comes down to the good old Buddhist "Middle Way" you have to be aware that your actions have consequences and no extremes are good.
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