Post Your Rant of the Day

End of the 8th day of our holiday in Florida. Number of things seen or done on my to-do list: "0"! 6 more days; estimated number of thing to be accomplished on 'my' list... You guessed it!
 
Johnus said:
............... estimated number of thing to be accomplished on 'my' list...........
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That's all good and well but if, by implication, there is also "another" list made by "another" person that needs to be adhered to, and if the "other" person is anything like mine, you're royally buggered my friend.
 
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So I'm in Siem Riep in Cambodia, and today I went for a look around the Angkor archaeological park. Briefly for anyone unaware, it's about eight hectares of temples and ancient buildings from the Khmer empire. Angkor Wat is the most famous temple, but there are loads of smaller temples within the park too. Some of the ruins are a thousand years old. It's a beautiful and amazing architectural and cultural site to see, and they're restoring it exceptionally.

It's also full of fucking Japanese tour groups. Now, before I go further, I have nothing against the Japs. All the younger ones I encountered today were nice and unobtrusive, exceptionally polite. One of them even traded his (unopened) beer with me at lunch because he got the last Asahi, he just heard the waitress and passed it over the table because he'd had a couple already. I was really struck by the kindness.

The tour group crowd though, just wow. Arrogant, self important and inconsiderate. They really do expect that everyone stay out of the vast area they've 'reserved' for their five minute photo session, which is almost always located in a doorway or a walkway. Then, when you excuse yourself and walk past them, they look at you with such a unique combination of disdain, disgust and hostility that it makes me want to just go stand in the middle of their photo and fuck 'em.

Maybe I just had the misfortunate to be in an already crowded space with a few bad groups, but four times I got jostled by impatient wankers with camera's pushing past (even on the bloody stairs!) without even an excuse me or a sorry. It really did seem today like there's an age in their culture in which you turn into a rude and inconsiderate dick.

The cameras are the other thing. For someone who wants to walk around and have an actual experience, it was infuriating waiting for the endless photos to end. In the end I just thought stuff it, and walked where and when I wanted. I watched one bloke walk through a whole temple filming it with his camera. He should have just stayed home and watched a doco, the result would have been better for him and me.

I'd better go find some Beer Lao before this vein in my head explodes.
 
True enough, but I'm a self responsibility kind of guy. I'll look after me, you look after you, and when we intersect we'll meet in the middle. Not much middle today, it was quite a test of patience.

I guess I'm just pissed because a place of such beauty and peace should have been contemplative and relaxing, and that was impossible given the circumstances. A few bad grapes spoiled the bunch, is that how the saying goes?
 
Mong, I don't think it's particularly limited to Japanese people.

Once people get to a certain age they realise the clock is ticking and they got to get a hustle on :p

Bummer that it soured you day mate. That place looks amazing!
 
Mark1966 said:
Yep, so many razors, so little time!
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Yeah.....you reckon ole Tojo gave you a bit of a shoulder nudge when he was trying to squeeze off a few more pix on that big ass Nikon of his - just imagine the can of whupass Mark would open up on you if you got between him and a few vintage Gillettes at the local church fete or old lady round the corner's garage sale! BAM!!!!!

Hard to generalise but a lot of Japanese do still have that attitude where they genuinely believe they're a better race of people than ANYONE else.....which does go a long way towards explaining a lot of their historical actions....haha and also their popularity or rather lack there of with nearly every other country in Asia.

That all said I'd find that whole episode very annoying - people who think they OWN a section of the world so they can take a pic is pretty silly. That said sounds like some odd local rules/ettiquettes applying - frustrating anyway.
 
The other thing that bothers me is tourism, and obviously I'm a part of this. I understand that developing countries like Cambodia are reliant on the bucks, and that a lot of money has gone back into the communities (maybe not as much as it should). It's an amazing opportunity to be able to see and explore all this great stuff, but thousands of people went through Angkor Wat today walking on thousand year old stones. They've done their best to restore and protect it, but eventually the millions of tourist feet have to take their toll. I hate to think I might have contributed in a tiny way to the degradation of such an amazing feat of architecture and construction.

The other thing is that a town like Siem Reap has adjusted quite a lot to cater to tourists, some parts are westernized to the point of ridiculousness. There's too many pizza shops here, as an example. All the bars, restaurants and brothels don't cater to the locals and inhabit the center of the town for our pleasure. Local folks get pushed outside or adapt to suit us. It was a little the same in Hoi An in Vietnam, but not nearly as bad as here. With the cultural heritage around it, it seems inappropriate to me for it to be a debauchery filled party town.

I guess if you're a local the lure of the dollar is very appealing.
 
Don't worry with higher taxes Aussies won't be able to go there :p

For the Japanese it's more likely the mind set of people who take tours. Although if your 40 something and this is your one and only holiday in life you might get a bit pissed if someone walked through your photo.

For me I imagine some one putting nicks in my straight razors grrrr.

Up in cairns we have the same thing tours usually = bad. Be it camera toting folks or younger beer and condom toting folks, if you get my drift.

But loving your stories Mong. Used to live over there so I am remembering many stories!!
 
I never thought I'd pray for tax! Hopefully it stays cheap enough to go back as a backpacker soon, I'd love a few more days at the smaller and less crowded temples. Ran into two Aussie blokes at the Old Market who were living on $20 a day, I felt like royalty in comparison.

I've never been to Cairns, what's the appeal for the tour bus crowd? Resorts and beaches?

Did you live in Siem Reap or elsewhere? Apparently Phnom Pehn is interesting and dodgy.

Great photo of Ankhor Wat too! We were there in the late afternoon, it didn't look nearly as specy as that.
 
Cairns has amazing weather and is pretty relaxed. Surrounded by rain forest and diving off the coast. A few nice beaches etc.

I was working in Laos. But got to travel a lot though Asia. :). That photo might have been very early morning. We got up before light and listen to the monks and then watched the sun rise. Might be arvo to I didn't look at the time stamp.
 
The Apocalypse now talk made me think of this...

[video=youtube;i7mr9F7kHMM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7mr9F7kHMM[/video]
 
Ybbor said:
Cairns has amazing weather and is pretty relaxed. Surrounded by rain forest and diving off the coast. A few nice beaches etc.

I was working in Laos. But got to travel a lot though Asia. :). That photo might have been very early morning. We got up before light and listen to the monks and then watched the sun rise. Might be arvo to I didn't look at the time stamp.
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I think I'm jealous of both your location then and now! Sounds like a great job tp let you do that, did you spend any time in Laos? I think I've caught the Asian travel bug, I just need to convince one of my mates to come back here.

Cairns sounds pretty nice, the weather alone sounds better than Melbourne! Apparently last week it went from multiple 30+ degree days in a row to 18 and raining. Eugh.
 
Although Ankhor Wat is one of the few spots I wouldn't mind visiting, I generally can't be bothered with looking at monstrous, big buildings. I just can't help imagining the poor bastards that had to build it.
 
Ybbor said:
Up in cairns we have the same thing tours usually = bad. Be it camera toting folks or younger beer and condom toting folks, if you get my drift.
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You love the Woolshed though!

Weekend nights aside, I miss living in Cairns, but there's just so little work around there now unless you are in hospitality.
 
Mong. said:
Cairns sounds pretty nice, the weather alone sounds better than Melbourne! Apparently last week it went from multiple 30+ degree days in a row to 18 and raining. Eugh.
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Melbourne *only* gets 650mm rain per year, whereas Cairns is around 2000 - the three months of the wet can be very wet indeed.

I remember one day when we had over 400mm in 8 hours - 2/3 of Melbourne's yearly rain in 1/3 of a day!
 
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