Cancun

Coco Bongo Beach

My first day in Cancun involved a lot of jet lag as I had lost 13 hours flying from Indonesia, the airport losing my bag and therefore struggling with Spanish in an attempt to retrieve it (mighty successfully I should add) and a birthday party complete with pinata, tequilla and tacos. It is a pretty good way to sum up Cancun really; vibrant, confusing and you´ll be super tired by the end of your time here if you´ve done it right.

The ´Zona Hotelera´or would once have been known as ´The Beach´but now there are so many sky high hotels lining the coast that this is no longer an appropriate name. Getting on to the beach if you aren´t staying in one of these buildings involves finding a rare gap in the nightclub strip on to the beach, or sneaking through a hotel lobby. The beach itself is incredible- I can really see why it is popular: it is hard to believe in just how blue the water is. As well as this, it seems impossible to find a stretch that doesn't play loud club music from the bars along the sand. The place is famous as a Spring Break destination for American teenagers, but in Cancun it seems to be Spring Break all year round.

The natural beauty of the beach and the city of Cancun itself seem to be a kind of contradiction to each other. The very young city is also, in my opinion, very ugly. I accidentally found myself deep in downtown after missing my stop on the bus. People automatically assumed I was Mexican, because tourists never stray this far, which made things difficult. I think I said  ‘no hablas español’ more times than I ever will again in my life along with ‘donde esta Centro?’. Luckily, people are pretty friendly here and I did manage to make it back to the hostel with minimal problems, but it was still an uncomfortable experience. 

However, I really loved some of my experiences here and it made me very excited to see the rest of Mexico, which I now have every intention of doing. Sunday evening involves free salsa dancing lessons in the park, with everyone of all ages taking part and having fun for a couple of hours in downtown. The ´hippy´park is filled with artists just practising their trade, whether it is painting, dancing, fire shows or snake handling whilst relaxing with friends. These were my favourite, very welcoming moments in Cancun.

Cooling off after interviews...

Bali

Ubud, Bali.

You find yourself having to re-learn things that you thought you’d mastered years ago in Bali. For example, crossing roads is no longer a case of ‘Stop, look and listen’, but the skilled analysis of whether those blokes on scooters are skilled enough to dodge you if you walk now. Usually, yes,  but it took me a little while to stop feeling like I was staring death in the face whenever I wanted to explore the other side of the street.

It is a crazy place, with so many people it becomes a little dizzying at times. But, so long as you aren’t looking for winter, there is something for everyone here. Surfing, beautiful scenery, culture, history, food, trekking, partying, ANYTHING. Whatever you want, you’ll find it in Bali.

This is both a beautiful thing, and really very scary. I heard many people making jokes about the sex and drug tourism which is prevalent, which frankly horrified me. When tourists and local people alike can make jokes about the horrific suffering of some of the people who live in the area there is something severely wrong with the way the industry is functioning.

Eco-tourism isn’t prevalent in many parts of Bali, but I feel that a push towards this could improve the situation greatly.  I don’t think that the areas with a strong party reputation like Kuta will become eco-tourism hubs, but the well-established tourist industry wouldn’t need to change too much in order to become much healthier. The answer seems to be in educating visitors about how to behave responsibly before they arrive. Whilst some people actively seek the grungier side available, a lot have accidentally stumbled across it, and these people are very much in the majority and therefore have the power to alter the way the system is functioning.

Local market at 5.30am

A wider push in Australia and the countries of Europe, who provide most of the travellers in Bali, to educate people about where to stay, buy souvenirs and what activities to do in order to protect the local people could really improve the lives of so many who are exploited. For example, buying handicrafts in Ubud that have been made locally is a sustainable way to get souvenirs, as opposed to the sweat-shop factory souvenirs also available. When you party, staying away from the local alcohol Arak is a good idea for your health, but also you will support bars and clubs that make enough money to properly support their staff and behave responsibly. They are only the smallest changes to a tourist’s experience, but it could have a drastic effect on the industry as a whole.

Music Teacher, Tour Operator and General Good Egg

Kuta Lombok

People are calling Lombok the ‘New Bali’. There is good reason for this, as direct flights from Australia to the island will be active from September, making access to the much, much easier.

This means big things for the people that live here and the environment too. One Novotel Resort has already been set up in Kuta Lombok, providing the beginnings of some of the luxury travel that you expect to find in Bali, and the local people appear to really benefit from its existence. Although one opinion is that the small hotels cannot possibly compete with the big luxury brand, actually Novotel provides for a completely different kind of tourist, and therefore doesn’t take business away from the local people. In fact, it provides more jobs as a market has been set up, traditional dances take place in the hotel and private drivers are needed to serve the needs of the clientele.

Wooden homes around Kuta

Possibly more importantly, it also helps to fund a movement that helps to keep people in Kuta safe. The area has suffered with tourists no longer visiting after it got a reputation for being dangerous, with many reported robberies and attacks. With the creation of an alliance largely paid for by the hotels called BMW (Bina Masyarakat Wisata), the area is protected with security guards that patrol day and night. According to the local people, the biggest benefit of having tourism in the area is this added safety for ALL people.

A popular surfing beach

Lombok has to be the most beautiful place I have ever been to, and whilst I appreciate that people need the benefits that resorts such as Novotel bring, I really hope this doesn’t impact the environment too much. The beautiful landscape and deserted beaches are what give Lombok its charm, and so controlling the development of such resorts will be a really important priority to help maintain a balance between the economic and environmental needs. Providing more jobs is the most significant need for the local people, and it is really important that this happens in order to support a growing population, but perhaps the big businesses who will inevitably buy the land that is so cheap at the moment can take the time to consider the most environmentally friendly way of doing so.

Riding scooters can be treacherous because of these characters. Cheeky Water Buffalo.

The beaches are currently owned by the government, with local people squatting on them in small wooden huts. But when the government claims back the land, and all of the temporary construction that line beaches are replaced by concrete buildings, the coastline and aquatic life will have severe problems, along with the people who will be displaced from the homes and jobs they have been in for years. It is only a matter of time, and if Bali is any kind of indicator, it really won’t take long.

Typical beach front 'Warung', or restaurant

Gili Trawangan

Some people I met on Gili T were hassled every few meters with offers of various drugs, but I apparently have an innocent face, and was offered snorkelling gear instead- the two main activities for tourists in the Gili Islands. This is a party place, disguised as a snorkelling place. Although Island Security protects the locals and tourists, no police are on the island allowing for many illicit activities, such as widespread drug use and the mysterious absence of dogs. This ‘freedom’ and the crystal clear, warm waters of the paradise beaches attract thousands of people to get loose.

Whilst you would expect there to be a lot of problems stemming from this kind of culture, there is actually quite a peaceful balance in the area. Tourists arrive to party, and then get bored of the beach-bum life and start to dive, funding a pretty good lifestyle for people on the island. To be a divemaster is a high aspiration for some local people, and considered a very cool job. This puts the dive shops in a very powerful position, and it is a position that they don’t seem to abuse. In fact, they fund all the environmental conservation and take their position very seriously as responsible businesses. From all of my research so far I have found that diving tends to improve environmental conservation in an area, and Gili Trawangan takes this to the extreme, as conservation would be non-existent without the popularity of diving.

So it seems to work out just fine that people will dive all day and party all night. There isn’t a resentment of tourists here because the village was created when tourists started to arrive. I was actually in the Gili’s at the quietest time of the year, as Ramadan causes many of the restaurants and bars to shut earlier, or even to not open in the first place. For this reason, I am well aware that my opinion of just how well functioning the island is may have been different had I visited during the craziest times of the year.

In a place where the government doesn’t really get involved and where making money is the main priority, the big decisions that affect the environment such as for development and waste disposal become hard to control. Although conservation attitudes are widespread with no vehicles being allowed, cats being cared for and new coral being actively encouraged to grow, the bigger picture is beyond the control of the local people. As well as this, in my opinion wherever there are drugs there needs to be caution, but controlling widespread drug use in a country where the sentence is already capital punishment must be very difficult.

However, my most interesting revelation for the island? People are full of conservation ideas and plans, but no one had an answer for how to control the drugs in Gili when I asked, because no one viewed it as a problem.