And what are all those tourists doing with themselves here in the North of Thailand?
Well, as in most touristy cities, they are certainly doing the usual dining and shopping and clubbing in the evenings, but it seems that during the days, for the most part, the foreigners are occupying much of their time engaging in the numerous "Eco-Tourism" activities.
And there are lots and lots of them to do.
I sort of suspect that the "eco-tourism" is largely just a euphemism and is probably more accurately described as "eco-capitalism" in most cases and in some cases is probably little more than "eco-profiteering" bordering on "eco-vandalism"!
But since I cant recal actually having done any of it in the past, Im not really in a position to make informed judgements!
So, Ive decided to participate in a few of these activities to "inform" myself...and to fill in my time too :)
And first on the list is "Zip Lining" through the local mountain jungle at a nearby small village. Now I have had the opportunity to do this plenty of times before but just have not bothered to try it till now... Ive done lots or rock climbing in some quite spectacular locations and felt that Id probably not get as much out of zip lining as other people would, and that consequently it was not really worth the money to me.
But this time, I did it anyway :)
I went very early in the day and there was no-one else in my group, so I got two "guides" all to myself and I was not going to have to wait for other people at all... Should make for quick progress!
It took an hour or so to drive up into the mountains; Then about ten minutes to get kitted up, and then about five minutes to walk to the start... and I was away!
And this is what the start looks like... Steel cables stretching away into the distance at a slight decline... The end point is of course, that platform built half way up a tall tree (30m or so) at the other end of the cable...
Well there was some safety checking, and the first launch was a bit more gentle than that, but it did seem to be a bit "perfunctory" compared to the amount of "gear checking" that Im used to doing for rock climbing! :)
But not for me... No, it was all a bit of a blur of a few zip sections and then an abseil and a zip, and a spiral staircase and a couple more zips, and a suspended bridge and a zip and another abseil.... etc.
Actually, I was impressed with the care and expense put into the many hundreds of metres of walking trail on the hillside between a couple of sections of zip line... It was all very well cabled and duck-boarded (effectively a suspended bridge at ground level). I can see that it would be necessary though in the rainy season since with about a hundred people a day coming through, it would all turn into an eroded mud-fest very quickly. So, the expense is I guess justified in that it ensures the tourists dont get filthy and injured and so have a better experience ... so more tourists will want to do it and the business makes more money :)
... And after a short break, it was back to more zip lining...
And I got back in time to see the next batch of tourists heading off into the jungle to do some of their own flying :)
Yes it fun, but I doubt Ill do it again... Its really a zero-skill, zero-attention required,supper-safe adrenaline hit and I tend not to need that so much these days :)
As for the eco-tourism aspect of it, well, like I say, I think there is really very little "eco" about it other than the jungle providing a "pleasantly exotic back-drop" to this adrenalin activity. That said though, it was all run very professionally, and as far as I could see, lt did do very little damage to the environment. It also brought a sizeable business out into a very small village and provided direct employment for ten to twenty village people as well as indirect employment for another ten or twenty. A slight down-side is of course that when any community gets "mass" employment from a single corporate source then they effectively become economic "slave" to that business since there are no other local options... Its great while it works, but if the business ever decides to move to a different village then the local economy (and often the village) never recovers. Likewise, after the initial economic up-swing for the village, the locals ultimately have very little bargaining power over wages etc since again, there are no other local options... So, there are those aspects as well.
And what about profits for the business??
Well, it looks pretty good to me... It takes a year or so to set-up the cables/platforms for one of these businesses (assuming you have done it before and know what you are doing), and a similar time (concurrently) to train up and prepare the local employees and support businesses. The capital investment in the cable-way and tree platforms is significant as well as a sizeable investment in client equipment (harnesses, helmets, pulleys, carabiners etc). But once thats in, the operating costs look like they are quite low (mostly just wages). They are charging between $40 and $70 per person and they get over a hundred people a day through in high season... Thats about $5000 a day coming in and operating expenses of pretty much only 15 local village employee wages (really low cost here in Thailand.). Note also that I didnt see a single Foreigner in any active role in the business, though Im absolutely sure that it was set-up by and administered by foreigners. So they are now just taking the profits somewhere and likely setting up other similar businesses in other exotic tourist locations!. Of course, they have to amortise the capital equipment costs (which I dont really know but would guess are of the order of $100K), which I think would probably be over a 10 year period for the cable-ways and 1-2 year period for the client equipment.
... Anyway, I think it looks like a pretty profitable enterprise! and its certainly way better than logging the forest! (which by-the-way is now completely illegal in Thailand, so at least these villagers now have an alternate source of income).
So, though this is not really very eco-involved, as it were, it does result in effectively utilising the forest in a largely non-destructive way (Though Id stop well short of saying it helps "protect" the forest), It gets city people out into the native landscape at least a bit (and that fosters at least some appreciation for the natural environment) and it is a good business proposition too.
So I guess Im OK with this one :))
... On to the next "eco-adventure"!...
