For many, the reopening of today will perhaps be good news Maya Bay, the wonderful Thai beach, set for January 1, 2022 by the Department of National Parks of Thailand. Instead it is not. Maya Bay was one of the first “environmental victims” among the many spectacular locations of films and TV series that became prey to the tourist masses at the time of low cost. We had seen it in The Beach with Leonardo Dicaprio, a refuge of intact nature, an eden of freedom in which to live (for better or for worse) the most atavistic demands of humanity. We all fell in love with the beach, with that dip by Leonardo into the blue of the sea. And many had gone to find it, on the island of Phi Phi Leh, one step away from Puket, an emerald of the sea, the beauty of the tropics at its peak. Then the many had become a crowd, so much so that in 2018 the beach, with an average of 5,000 visitors per day, was closed to give the environment a chance to take a break, and the corals to regrow. Was this handful of years really enough? Is it really so necessary to reopen it?
The point is that if a time, even just the time of The Beach (released in 2000) travel was a choice and a conquest still for a few – and mind you, it wasn’t for a question of affordability because those who wanted to travel have always found their own ways to do it, but it was because they were few who wanted to move around the world, including stopovers, passages, ferries, different languages, determination and, above all and always, curiosity – today the journey has become a collective madness. The traveler of the past has turned into a locust of the organized travel dictated by the sole purpose of compiling a list and taking a photo for social media, and so Maya Bay (with the other target destinations) has been exploited to such an extent that, local fauna disappeared and corals destroyed, one had to take turns to take that useless dreamy photo of the horizon of the sea with no human trace far from the truth of shouting and clattering crowds. Nothing so far from our views of Lake Braies, an exceptional beauty of the Alps that despite the efforts of the administration is still a destination for busses and crowds. Only at dawn in midseason can you see how it was.
The theme is not a small one. The masses bring money, but even if you have to give up the easy money, there is also a theme of freedom. Aren’t we free to see the world and explore it? The answer is that at this point maybe not. Because the world has changed, because if we pour in crowds and crowds of people in a place we determine its end, if we continue to travel wild and recklessly we eat the world, its nature, the animals that live there, as well as communities transformed from fishermen into sellers of photographs on the boat. And if the answer is that the world goes on and we can’t stand against the future, well, instead it is worth remembering that we still have the ability to choose the future.
The solution is to follow the many virtuous examples of regulated beaches, with limited entry, with precise rules, as Maya Bay wants to be, which has introduced new restrictions to visit it, or better still closed completely, to keep a part of the world out of sight. melee and protect it until the collective madness of the “right photo” passes in the “right” place, as we are taught by another magical place in the Dolomites, Val di Funes, previously unknown and now a destination in the Middle East to take a photo of the church with the magic of the Odle behind it, and then Santorini, Venice, Machu Picchu .. Maybe in the in the meantime the madness of traveling will also pass as a teleportation of direct Malpensa-Puket charters, plus an hour of speedboat, to be catapulted into the postcard, in a place now distant from all its history and context, and we will remember that the journey is not the place that is reached but the path, it is the knowledge that lies in between, are the kilometers, the words, the news, the disappointments too, the change of course, the improvisation. Always respecting the world.
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Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
