If you’ve read a few of these posts of mine, by now you’ll have picked up on a common thread: just how overwhelmingly often I’ve been made to feel welcome and treated with kindness. Heartfelt acts of beautiful humanity have popped up time and time again throughout my journey. Fear not, this is not another tale of me in tears, however the people creating these special moments will undoubtedly be what I cherish most about this trip when I tumble down from cloud 9 and back into Brighton in less than a week (eeek!)
So, when it was pointed out to me the other day that I had behaved towards someone in a much less considerate or kind manner, it really knocked me.
Here’s what happened: Whilst walking down to Hoppa Glacier in the Nagar Valley, Pakistan, I paused to take a short video clip of a group of local people carrying large loads of firewood and climbing up the hill towards me. The back drop was white capped peaks and with the harsh, blunt glacier sitting silently at the bottom of the valley. A stunning setting no doubt.
Whilst I was filming, a young boy shouted something in my direction. I got an immediate sense of what he might be saying, so I put my phone away whilst no doubt doing the whole ‘pretending I’m pointing it somewhere else’ gaze. I walked on, sheepishly, but later asked my guide, Ali, to tell me exactly what the boy had said, and he translated the conversation below:
In the Marathi dialect spoken in Nagar:
Woman: (to boy) ‘He’s taking photos, tell him to not to’
Boy: (to me) ‘You should ask before you take photos’
Woman 2: (to woman 1) ‘Let him take pictures of us carrying our heavy load. How can the boy tell him not to, he doesn’t speak English.’
Boy: (to me, in English, and with an angry expression on his face) ‘Stop!!’
When I heard this, I felt awful. There I was, capturing the ‘moment’, but completely disregarding what I was actually doing: shooting video of people carrying extremely heavy looking loads up a very steep hill. This is a remote and harsh landscape where people have to work extremely hard to scratch a living. I found out that the group were returning from collecting the wood from the far side of the treacherous glacier, and had been hauling it back to their homes for many hours. And there’s me, resplendent in my bright and waaay over-the-top Patagonia kit, casually recording their toils.
Why was I doing this? Simply because their presence in the video clip made the landscape a lived-in one; they made it real (you know, for my socials darling…) .
I’ve been so busy just clicking away at will, capturing the incredible scenes around me, that I’d forgotten the golden rule of travel. Which is this:
When we travel, we are the guests; the people that call where we visit home owe us nothing. It doesn’t matter who you are, how much you paid to be there – and certainly not how far you’ve travelled by train – you take your shoes off at the door and show good manners.
The ‘locals’ we always go on about are people with full, ordinary, extraordinary lives, not props for my photos. Most aren’t gaining anything from tourism.
And asking, or at least showing greater care of your subject selection, before taking a photo of someone is just one small example of this.
Tourism is not a one-way transaction and in any case any money you pay for your trip, and any that you spend whilst you’re travelling, reaches so few.
We should all make an effort to speak at least a few words of the language, and walk in step with them rather than choosing the tourist-centric path. We are there to humbly experience another place and culture. Eat locally-made food in local restaurants or on the streets as much of the time as we can. You’re not only doing the local communities a disservice when you don’t, you’re lessening your own experience. Seriously, think about it, aren’t these always the meals you talk about when you return home?!
Engage with people you meet along the way, participate and share. These are eyes up moments and certainly not a time for me to be found mindlessly scrolling through my phone on the long train journeys as I would do at home.
Travel can and should create ripples of positivity, and be focused on sharing the benefits as broadly and fairly as possible, through the spread of wealth and support of social economic and conservation projects, amongst other things. The reality is that the vast majority of visitors’ spend still, unfortunately and frustratingly, ends up being diverted from local communities, much of it out of the country altogether. We and many other progressive travel companies I know are trying to change this, like my excellent co-members at Travel by B Corp, but it takes time to build up.
Buy locally, buy ethically, consider your actions. But also turn up and be present.
Travel is a chance to broaden your own horizons, and those of the people you meet along the way, by sharing ideas and worldly view points. It’s how we all stay close in a perpetually divided world, and it’s so important. Stay humble, stay present and tread with care, and we all benefit from travel’s ability to bring us face to face with one another.