When Poverty Destroys Beauty
We are sitting on a slowboat on the Mekong River at the moment, having just departed Chang Khong and said our goodbyes to Thailand, at least for the time being. The Mekong is murky beneath us and its banks are a dusty sort of sand falling way from the swaying shrubbery in drastic slopes. Fortunately, we made our way onto the boat with the first group and so managed to secure ourselves two spots in the “lounge” area- a small space towards the back of the boat, devoid of the terribly confined benches that fill the front and make this look more like a cattle car than a luxurious tour of the river. But, if there’s one thing we have learned here, it is that nothing is what it seems.
It is quaint in the back of the boat with everyone sitting around reading or dozing, limbs scattered at random. We have been casually sipping on a bottle of whiskey I fished out of my bag to make the ride a little more bearable. It is also probably part of the impetus for me sitting down to write in this journal in these slowly swaying circumstances.
In retrospect India was quite the experience, if for no other reason than to serve as a point of juxtaposition against the rest of our lives and the rest of our travels. It is a country and a culture that is approaching a state of irreparability with its already monstrous population growing at an exponential rate, and its history and resources being relentless abused as a result. What is most troubling is the maddening coincidence surrounding their situation: they depend on tourism for their livelihood and the endurance of their culture and tradition, but their history and culture are destroyed by the influx of western civilization and the exploitation that their own land and population suffer at the hand of those same tourists.
Similarly unfortunate is their treatment of tourists. While they depend on us for our money, it is an over-dependence. It causes the touts to be necessarily over-bearing and also breeds contempt amongst their culture for the ability of westerners to simply come into India, spend money at will, and leave without ever developing a concept of their effects.
Poverty is an overwhelming and crippling condition. The monetary dependence we have nowadays has perverted even the most remote parts of the world.
What an awful thing when poverty begins to overwhelm beauty. In India, the most beautiful havelis and the most intricate and ornate artwork, the tangible remnants of their past and culture, are falling into utter disrepair because no one can afford the time or the money to maintain them. And how awful it is when poverty begins to overwhelm history and Art, two things that we hold so sacred in the western world. Poverty is literally choking the splendor out of their everyday lives.
The experience of all this, then, leaves one feeling helpless. There is no immediate recourse that could wholly reverse the trend. The question then becomes: Is traveling to these areas more helpful or more harmful than not?
I think the obvious answer to that is that traveling there makes all the difference.
Without knowledge of the situation, nothing can be done. For me, seeing the state of India served both to educate me about the tragic status of their part of the world, and to make me greatly appreciate (to an absurdly more serious extent) the luxuries and good fortune I enjoy by living where and how I do.
