Standing there by the side of a dusty street in the middle of an ancient mud-brick neighbourhood, a guy rides up to me on a motorbike and motions for me to get on the back. I was in Iran, there was no spare helmet, the roads are absolute chaos, I had no idea who this guy was, I had a really expensive camera on me and quite a lot of cash – what could possibly go wrong?
Take me where people aren’t used to tourists and I guarantee the locals will see much more than your wallet.
What was I doing in Iran in the first place? I don’t review the annual Global Peace Index survey, go straight to the bottom of the list and book the first flight to Ebolastan. However I do like to choose out of the way places that have big mountains and people that wear funny hats, and if those places also happen to be on the DFAT “Do Not Travel” (DNT) list, then I try to make sure my wife doesn’t find out, do my research and end up going anyway.
If you’re reading this on your iPad with daiquiri in hand from the comfort of a poolside lounge in Bali, with a Thai massage but a clap-of-the-hands away, it may not be readily obvious why someone would want to go places that have no tourist infrastructure, crap food, language barriers, no Wifi (gasp!), landmined fields and the imminent threat of kidnapping and/or public executions. And when I write it like that, you might have a point. Except I think about all the ill-advised places I’ve been and how much more I’ve enjoyed them.
The Taj Mahal was amazing, but a fat, sweaty French man literally sat on top of me to take a photo of the morning sunrise, because he wanted exactly the same angle I had. And I don’t use the word literally like people do these days (I remember Jon Bon Jovi once saying on the radio “we will literally rock your socks off”. Really? They have a sock removal device?), I mean, like literally. And how many times do you need to knock back a ping pong show in Phuket, or a carpet salesman in Turkey? Bugger that. Take me where people aren’t used to tourists and I guarantee the locals will see much more than your wallet and your interactions will become more genuine.
From the moment the soldier at the border of Iran hailed down a truck to take me to the nearest town, the hospitality was overwhelming. People paid for my ride in shared taxis and spontaneously took me out to dinner. Some gave me their name and number with a sincere request to call them if I needed help. There was one hilarious young man who, despite being a carpet seller custom-bound to rip me off, was however so blown away by my mere presence he was desperate to give me a gift. He anxiously looked around his whole shop, before remembering that he had a ring on his finger, ripped it off, thrust it into my hand, and bowed like I was a demigod. It’s a crap ring and I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing it, but what awesome generosity. In my eagerness to reciprocate, I gave him the only thing I had on me at the time – a deck of cards. He screamed excitedly and showed his mates, acting like he’d won the lottery. I thought he was hamming it up until someone told me that cards are illegal in Iran and therefore very hard to find – who knew I was such a badass playing solitaire in my room at night!
Afghanistan was another awesome surprise – I travelled from Kabul, through the Ghorband Valley, and up over the Shibar pass into Bamian. We spent an amazing time with the local Hazaras, who are as cheeky, mischievous and fun as a bunch of ten year olds on red cordial. A local guy was so surprised to meet us he invited us onto his national radio show, where people called in from all over the country, asked us questions, and dedicated songs to us. At the end of the show the producers chose a song for us to dedicate back to the people of Afghanistan – a hardcore dance track by DJ Armageddon (no, me neither). Everyone in the studio jumped up and started dancing like it was a rave. In a country where the Taliban prohibition on music and dancing had only recently been lifted, it was surreal and beautiful, and one that wouldn’t have been as heavy with meaning in Ibiza, Ios or Goa.
Surely the excitement of seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time gets tempered by a sense of deja vu?
In that same trip we drove along a muddy, snow covered goat track for hours to get to Band-e Amir, Afghanistan’s first National Park (declared only in 2009 – guess they’ve had other things on their minds). Brilliant blue lakes are surrounded by extraordinarily high cliffs, reminiscent of America’s Grand Canyon. We rounded a corner, saw the view for the first time, and gobsmacked, I actually yelled out at the top of my voice, “HOLY CRAP!!!” When was the last time you did that?
It was an immediate contradiction to the idea of the Middle East as one big desert pockmarked with IED craters, but the true beauty was that because I’d never even heard of it or seen it in pictures, my experience wasn’t dulled by previously viewing a million photos posted by gloating Facebook friends. Surely the excitement of seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time gets tempered by a sense of deja vu?
The rest of trip we spent skiing in the Hindu Kush, spending a day with local kids who rode on handmade wooden skis, and used chain or rope to hold their gumboots or sneakers down. They were having a ball. We were Westerners with incredibly privileged, safe, comfortable lives, and they were rural kids from a persecuted minority who have known nothing but poverty, oppression and bloodshed; we couldn’t be more different, yet here we were, skiing and sharing our love for the mountains together. The skiing wasn’t great that day – there was a breakable crust, plus a sandstorm had left a layer of sticky dirt on top, but it was easily the best ski day of my life. It isn’t every day that you are so happy that you cry, or, um, get a bit of dust stuck in your eye.
Very rarely are entire countries unsafe – think American news reports showing our entire continent ablaze during a bad bushfire season, wall-to-wall flames from Sydney to Perth. Or when foreigners saw the Cronulla riots on TV and called up their rellies in Melbourne to make sure they were safe. We shake our heads with a slightly superior smirk and tetch at how clueless everyone else in the world is - but it’s usually the same story for countries with a DNT advisory.
I’m not brave, and you don’t need to be. You just need to be curious.
Having said that, would I go somewhere like Syria? Probably not. It might sound like I take wild chances, but I don’t. I’d love to pretend it’s just because my wife would kill me, but I’m actually one of the biggest chickens I know – I’ve never bungy jumped, I hate big surf, and the thought of white water rafting The Zambezi (a pretty common thing for travellers to do at Victoria Falls) scares the crap out of me. I’m not brave, and you don’t need to be. You just need to be curious.
I also don’t want people to think the DNT advisories are a crock. Given the fact that a select portion of travellers are clueless wingnuts who clearly shouldn’t be allowed to go even to their letterbox unsupervised, it is understandable that DFAT would rather play a cautious game in their ranking system. After all, they’re the ones who need to arrange the rescue and repatriation of said wingnuts. But does that mean anyone who does need rescue is an irresponsible idiot who should be left hung out to dry? While it may appear that some people don’t deserve the assistance of the Australian taxpayer, what sort of nation would we be if we turned our back on every adventurer who wanted to learn something about the world? The more people who push limits, the more that contributes to the general knowledge of society as a whole. I’m not much of a philosopher, but I am going to go out on a limb and call knowledge a Good Thing.
I have rich memories of seeing a snow leopard in Kashmir, sleeping inside the crater of an active volcano in El Salvador, climbing to the top of a minaret in the middle of one of the world’s biggest ghost cities in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, hitchhiking on rickety cargo boats in Colombia, and seeing skull temples in a civil-war torn Solomon Islands built from the spoils of tribal war.
Source: The Feed
And the guy on the motorbike in the opening paragraph? He drove me to the other side of town, showed me a chimney, and then drove me right back to where he’d picked me up from. I have no idea what the chimney was, why it was important, but man, this guy was so proud of it, it hard was not be excited for him.
There’s over 200 countries in the world – you are only limited by your imagination! Oh, and maybe your wallet. Or your job. Or maybe your partner. But apart from all of that, go!
Dark Tourism airs on The Feed on Wednesday 14 October, 7.30pm on SBS2.
