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Lack
Joined: 10 Aug 2011 Posts: 252
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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Sigh. I'm so far away from anything like that.
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
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Lack
Joined: 10 Aug 2011 Posts: 252
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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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
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mitsui
Joined: 10 Jun 2007 Posts: 1562 Location: Kawasaki
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 9:52 am Post subject: |
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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
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:02 am Post subject: |
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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
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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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
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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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
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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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
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Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:48 pm Post subject: Hi |
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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
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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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
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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A bit of irony in that conclusion. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 13859 Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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Dear santi84
You mean - like tourists who want to avoid all the places that tourists usually go?
Regards,
John |
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buravirgil
Joined: 23 Jan 2014 Posts: 967 Location: Jiangxi Province, China
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spanglish
Joined: 21 May 2009 Posts: 742 Location: working on that
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Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 4:24 am Post subject: |
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Bogota doesn't have many tourists. Then again, the architecture isn't all that either. |
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