RESPONSIBLE TOURISM

These days the pace of life is faster-we want to accomplish a lot of things in a shorter span of time. Unfortunately, this applies when we take time off too! Our pleasure trips sometimes leave us feeling more tired than rejuvenated – the sight-seeing is done at a punishing pace; no sight is to be left unseen and no adventure left untried.

Egypt has some of the world’s oldest engineering wonders and some beautiful treasures and sights. Since moving to Cairo a few months back, we have visited a number of “tourist” places and my enjoyment has at times been marred by the attitude and acts of some of the tourists.

A visit to the Crystal Mountain in the White Desert is to enjoy the beauty and vastness of the landscape -picking a crystal as a souvenir or keepsake will only deplete nature and probably not even occupy “shelf-space” in your house after a year. Using a 4x4 to get closer to the rock formations definitely saves time and energy but the tyres over the fragile rocks will soon grind them to rubble and the very formations that are drawing such crowds will disappear! Visiting the desert in the age-old way i.e. walking or on a camel is more enjoyable!

Watching the sun set from the Sinai Mountain or star gazing in the desert with a chilled coke/ beer for company maybe idyllic but leaving behind the empty cans/ bottles contributes to the degradation of the environment and is nuisance value to the later tourists. Camping in the desert is adventurous; lighting campfires and singing, talking around it is entertaining but the burned out camp fires and other garbage left behind is not appealing.

The entrance fees to the Egyptian Museum is high – but it is not a license to go strolling beyond the “no visitors beyond this point” signs. Some people are hard at work here cataloguing and describing all the archeological findings for our better understanding.

The centuries old tombs and mastabas have lovely painted reliefs – we are lucky that they are still in good enough condition for us to admire them – don’t be tempted to touch them! And do we really need to talk so loudly when we are inside the tombs – the paintings and the frescoes are beautiful enough to leave us “speechless” – the moisture from our chatter may harm the reliefs and the frescoes. Giving “baksheesh” to a guard to allow you to use your flash in tombs will give you a good picture to be the focal point of a dinner party at your house, but will harm the paint of the reliefs.

It is only fair that we respect the sentiments of the people of the country that we are visiting, whether it is in the manner of our dressing and covering the head and removing the shoes when entering into a mosque. Scrambling on the rocks and the toppled statues in the temples at Luxor may give you a better vantage point for your photograph but you may be stepping on and erasing important historical evidence.

Most of these things are just a matter of common sense; we can do our bit to preserve what we have been fortunate enough to inherit-WE OWE IT TO THE FUTURE GENERATIONS!