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Finding places that still have spirit...
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Lack



Joined: 10 Aug 2011
Posts: 252

PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sashadroogie wrote:
How much more soul can you want?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKGjG_ZhF-A


Sigh. I'm so far away from anything like that. Sad

Well, I'm going to try to explore some of the ancient temples around here when my situation gets better. I hope that can tide me over until I can relocate.
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLXpIs17Fjk
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Lack



Joined: 10 Aug 2011
Posts: 252

PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I will update my list a bit. I've added one more to the running:

Yangon, Myanmar
Guanajuato, Mexico
Siem Reap, Cambodia
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEEk2J-Whzg
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mitsui



Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1562
Location: Kawasaki

PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For me, Prague.

But I think you can get work in Cambodia and Myanmar.
See Myanmar before it changes. That is what I have heard.
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twowheel



Joined: 03 Jul 2015
Posts: 753

PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am not really sure how much spirit Siem Reap has. Well, I found the overly-touristed city center to greatly lack spirit.

Hanging out at the many temples was wonderful though.

twowheel
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Deats



Joined: 02 Jan 2015
Posts: 503

PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 2:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Myanmar has already changed. The ship has sailed.

Siem Reap is just a tourist hot spot. Foreigners are seen as cash cows. Incredible temples though!
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Lack



Joined: 10 Aug 2011
Posts: 252

PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Deats wrote:
Myanmar has already changed. The ship has sailed.

Siem Reap is just a tourist hot spot. Foreigners are seen as cash cows. Incredible temples though!


OK, so I could just visit Cambodia. I'm going to work a trip there at some point. Even just seeing photos of Angkor Wat fills my heart with a joy that only seeing such things can.

Has Myanmar really been changed already? Didn't it just open up a few years ago? I guess things don't take long in this globalized world. Here I am bemoaning globalization while thinking about my future EFL jobs abroad. Heh.
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Deats



Joined: 02 Jan 2015
Posts: 503

PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I spent a month there in 2008 and outside of Bagan, Mandalay, Yangon there were very few tourists. But those places still had quite a lot - mainly French it seemed. I have quite a lot of friends who have been there over the last few years and prices have quadrupled (and more) for hotels and tourists are seen as walking dollar bills. It was like that in 2008 to a degree (but you could escape that in many parts of the country), but from what I have heard it is far worse now.

I actually love Cambodia. A truly magnificent country. I actually didn't mind Siem Reap for a few days, but I wouldn't want to live there. I've travelled all over the country and found the locals to be very friendly, especially outside of the tourist traps. In Siem Reap it is very hit or miss. You can still meet some nice locals, but some are used to foreigners and what they can get from them. Not sure I'd ever want to live in Cambodia, Khmer cuisine is truly dreadful, especially compared with other cuisine in neighbouring countries.
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JRJohn



Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Posts: 175

PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:48 pm    Post subject: Hi Reply with quote

I used to love China, and to an extent I still do. But I have gotten tired of some aspects of the way modern China expresses itself. I am still fascinated by the history and by those aspects of culture that are still permitted to exist. But "modern" China can be so crude and crass. I will say though, that China has had big problems to solve, and huge numbers of people to house.

I lived in Henan province. Then Beijing. I found Henan more authentic, more "Chinese" in a way than Beijing-although there were issues. I liked Beijing at first, and it was partly because I had a lot of western colleagues. Later on it just came to be more and more stressful and inconvenient, and when I taught in a high school, although I had great classes, the people who hired me made life a lot harder.

In 2014, I read Dante's Inferno. I now think it's incomplete. There should be a whole circle of Hell for property developers, modern architects, builders, and people involved in demolishing old buildings. What you saw in China was not modernization. It was a speculative building boom. And it is increasingly getting out of control. I saw the same thing happening in Spain in 2001. (But Madrid is far more authentic that Beijing). Local government officials got involved in corrupt deals with builders. What was built was sometimes useless, and the asking price was inflated far beyond the true value.
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Lack



Joined: 10 Aug 2011
Posts: 252

PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm giving up on my idea. It's just not possible. Every city, country has been "discovered" and ruined. If it's not some post-modern LEGO block building dystopia, then it's some overpriced and overrun tourist trap.

Normally when we think of avoiding tourists, we think of avoiding Western tourists. Well, I recently visited a Chinese city with tons of beautiful ancient architecture still standing. Didn't see a single other foreigner besides myself, but what I did see was this: every place of beauty in the city turned into a tourist experience and tons of tourists...Chinese tourists. Much like American tourists in their own country. Commercialization and selfie sticks abounded.

There's no place left. It was silly of me to think I could find such a place.
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santi84



Joined: 14 Mar 2008
Posts: 1317
Location: under da sea

PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A bit of irony in that conclusion.
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear santi84

You mean - like tourists who want to avoid all the places that tourists usually go? Very Happy

Regards,
John
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buravirgil



Joined: 23 Jan 2014
Posts: 967
Location: Jiangxi Province, China

PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

touristiness (Estonia)
anti-tourism (Google)
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spanglish



Joined: 21 May 2009
Posts: 742
Location: working on that

PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bogota doesn't have many tourists. Then again, the architecture isn't all that either.
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