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Cheers

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I had no colonial attitude in mind when I said that. I just meant that we should treat the locals with respect, like you said.

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Thanks for this article. I experienced Myanmar first hand. We were a fairly large group of documentary photographers and when we got to Yangon’s airport, a “policeman” spotted our Motorola radios (those small cheap ones, we use them to communicate when working) and had us “detained” at the airport for two hours, until they finally agreed to keep the radios at the airport and give them back when we returned to Cambodia. When they found out we were photographers, they wanted to keep our cameras, too. If that happened, we were ready to take a plane back. There was no point for a photo group to stay w/o our work tools. They finally understood this and let us in.

The interesting thing is that, once in Yangon and Bagan, things were way more relaxed, and we didn’t have any other problems, not even while openly photographing on the streets.

For some people this was a shocking experience. That is why articles like these are so useful when it comes to researching the country you’re traveling to. Someone said that in Cuba, tourists are treated like kings and that Cuban government goes to the point of being very permissive with foreigners. I don’t know about this because I’ve never been there and I’m not planning to go for now.

Thanks again!

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On the other hand, it’s easy to warm up to guests who want to know more about your city/country and who are excited to experience new things. Attitude is everything. It’s not just about “traveller” versus “local” distinctions… It’s just good interpersonal skills.

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Sure, no colonialist attitude here! Yes, by all means, we should treat people with courtesy and respect wherever we travel, but can we drop the “us” versus “them” labels?

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Forgive me if it sounded like I was trashing your post- it’s just important to me that people keep an open mind when they go to another country and culture, and the best way is to approach it with the attitude of learning, NOT teaching…. Because it’s oh-so-easy to be patronising.

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Thanks for the comment. You said: “it’s not all about what’s in the news. Yeah, bad government- but the people are not so bad. Don’t generalise.”

This was my point. The governments are bad but the people are not and that we should go to these countries because the people are good and not punish them because their government is bad. At the end, I emphasize that point

I don’t see what is bad about treating the natives well. Your comment about the obnoxious American tourists highlights what happens when you don’t want the negative perceptions that can come out of that. Most of these governments paint a bad picture of foreigners. Any listen to what Bob says and you can see he that. So why not counter that propaganda and kill it with kindness? Show the natives we aren’t bad and we respect your local customs?

You could apply some of what I said to say italy. Respect the local customs. Treating the locals with respect does wonders towards promoting a global human community.

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Love thy neighbour? Lol.. that reminds me of the obnoxious American tourists I met in Australia. They went out of their way to tell the Aussies that they had stuff just like in the States- no, BETTER actually. So I guess that’s a good point.

Am curious: the points you make, can you apply them to a trip to, say, Italy? Because etiquette must be the same wherever you go, right?

And when you say Zimbabwe is not letting in tourists- do you mean WHITE tourists? cos I know Bob is not keen on white people in general. I see a few tourists around though, white and otherwise By the way, I know an American operator who has settled here- he’s an independent guy, and likes the country enough to tell you, it’s not all about what’s in the news. Yeah, bad government- but the people are not so bad. Don’t generalise.

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