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I wouldn't go back to Kashmir.
Like over the phone in the UK?
Or in the street!
Fucking charity muggers. String 'em up, I say.
I don't want to go home carrying my leg.
I would add that a lot of the troubles in certain countries are exaggerated by the media, and it is possible to remain pretty safe in places that you'd read about and think it was hell on earth.
yep. i'm not an expert but i've read a few things about the divide in wealth that grosses me out too.
Places where the vast majority of the signs are written in English, and where you're hard pushed to find any locals that don't work in the tourist industry, if you can find any locals at all. :yuck:
You get my drift?
I think I just fell in love with you
:yes: +1
Avoid Fiji. Stayed on Viti Levu for a week in 2001 and was shocked to find it was such a shit hole - especially the capital, Suva. Really unpleasant aggressive types follow you around trying to trick you into buying ethnic art - and it is surprisingly easy to get caught. One well known trick is for a trader to ask your name, then start carving it onto some art work. When you refuse to buy it they become very nasty. Another is to be offered a "gift" of a necklace in a store. The store owner is charm itself and puts the necklace around your neck. As you come to leave, he asks for a "donation" for his hospitality. You try and give the necklace back, but he has fastened it too tightly to easily remove and now demands $10 for his "gift". My husband and I were so weak willed, we ended up with all sorts of truly hideous mementos. Funny in retrospect, but kind of scary at the time.
So you avoid Essex then?
You're going to miss out on some very cool places if you're adamant about that criteria.
reasons?
The only nice part of Essex is Colchester.
Oh, and never come to Braintree. It's....eugh.
Racist like the french, but a little more serious about it.
Hmm i guess that might be true in some parts of the country, but the Italians that i've met have been lovely people (but then again, they have *ohmigosh* travelled outside their country (which is sometimes rare!)
You may well be right - but I'm also going to spend time in other very cool places that many other people miss out on. It probably is a bit snooty of me, and I wouldn't rule somewhere out completely on the signs/locals basis, but I prefer being a bit out of my comfort zone, and of the travelling I've done, my favourite experiences have been hitching with local farmers and forming a connection despite language barriers and learning from them about the places I'm in; things that tour guides etc. wouldn't think to tell you but that are central to the real, day-to-day experience of the people that live there.
Where in particular were you thinking of, CptCH?
Vast swathes of India are exactly as you've described. English being one of the official languages, it's ubiquitous. There are also a lot of people who only manage to exist because of tourism, especially in volatile, but amazingly beautiful and history-filled, places like Kashmir.
I mean, it's not somewhere I would definitely not go to. Just there are a lot of places I would rather go to
I completely get what you're saying; I think I probably worded it wrong. What I was really referring to was places where everywhere you look there are signs like 'Sunday Roast Served Here' and where the official language (where it's not English) is absolutely nowhere to be seen (or, often, heard).... and where that's the main reason the tourists there have visited.
In terms of tourism, you're right, there is a vital link between tourism and the economy in lots of places, and I may well be spreading that by visitng places off the beaten track. However, lots of my friends have been to places where not only had the locals been pushed out of their home areas either to make room for tourist resorts or by the rising costs of living near tourist hubs, but most of the people who ran tours to sites of interest (whether that be a historic site or the local club) were from the other end of the country or actually English themselves. What are they called -holiday reps?
Is it wrong that I really want to go there just because of Led Zeppelin :chin:?