Cashing in on Vietnam’s world heritage

Vietnam is justifiably emerging as one of South-East Asia’s most popular destinations, with over 10 million inbound tourists in 2016, up from less than 4 million in 2009. With a rich and vibrant culture, engaging history and varied landscape, the country seems set on a continued upward trajectory of rapid growth in its tourism industry.  

And yet... 

The temptation to focus on short-term profit over long-term sustainability is creating serious problems and putting at risk the very destinations which are drawing visitors to Vietnam in the first place. Nowhere is this more apparent than at some of the country’s most popular world heritage sites: Hoi An, Ha Long Bay and, most recently, Trang An.  

Hoi An Ancient Town was designated a world heritage site in 1999. A small-scale trading port between the 15th and 19th centuries, Hoi An began to attract foreign visitors in the late 1990s, who came to enjoy the city’s remarkably well-preserved historic centre as well as the pristine white sand beach at nearby Cua Dai. 

Fast-forward 20 years and you will find a very different place. Hoi An received 3.2 million visitors in 2017, a 22 percent increase over the previous year and an all-time record for the town. For my part, returning to Hoi An last summer for the first time in seven years, not only was I taken aback by the crowds and congestion but there seems to be very little going on in the historic centre apart from tourist-oriented stores and services.

Tour groups visiting Hoi An's iconic Japanese Bridge (Credit: G. Kipling)

While local authorities are to be commended for their efforts to maintain the architectural integrity and visual character of Hoi An’s historic centre, there is clearly a Venice effect at work as well, where overtourism risks degrading visitors’ experience while the local environment suffers long-term adverse consequences. 

A case in point is the near disappearance of much of Cua Dai beach due to coastal erosion. Though Vietnamese authorities emphasize external factors like global warming and rising sea levels, it is clear that uncontrolled hotel development and widespread sand-mining in the area are key contributors to the problem. And sadly even if authorities demonstrate more backbone than they have in the past to ensure sustainable tourism development in the larger Hoi An region, they are likely to find that problems that were years in the making will take decades to resolve.  

Arguably the situation is even more acute in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam’s north-east. Inscribed as a world heritage site in 1994, Ha Long is instantly recognizable for its towering Karst pillars rising above the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Indeed, for many no visit to Vietnam is complete without a cruise aboard one the countless “junks” and other assorted watercraft large and small which ply Ha Long Bay every day of the year. 

As one might expect in what has historically been a largely unregulated boat-cruise industry, the result has been congestion on the water, unhappy tourists cheated by unscrupulous operators and, more seriously, a string of boat fires and other accidents which have resulted in injuries and even deaths. Uncontrolled garbage and sewage disposal are also major problems in the area, which are threatening local ecosystems and turning off tourists. 

As one Australian visitor put it after taking a dip near Ha Long’s Dau Be Island: "I was only in for a few minutes. I went under and came out, covered in something — I thought it was oil — and smelled really bad. Some of the children on our boat later came out in a rash."   

Aerial view of Cat Ba Island (Credit: K. Martyn)

Again, amidst the gloom there are some signs that Vietnamese authorities are waking up to the risk they are running by allowing tourism and other industries to run roughshod over what was once a pristine environment. After a public outcry in 2015 the authorities stopped coal shipping near the world heritage site, and more recently Quang Ninh Province implemented a USD30m waste processing centre, although a mooted water protection program for the Bay remains pending. In the year ahead I expect more announcements regarding measures to further protect Ha Long Bay’s environment and regulate its tourism industry. However, as is the case elsewhere in Vietnam, weak rule of law and a profit maximization mindset are likely to undermine the positive impact of any any such measures. 

The seeming inability (or unwillingness?) of provincial and local authorities to protect Vietnam’s heritage sites is currently much in the public eye in the wake of the controversial construction of a 2,000-step staircase a 2,000-step staircase to the top of a mountain within the Trang An Landscape Complex world heritage site. 

Located in Vietnam's northern province of Ninh Binh, Trang An boasts a lush landscape studded with precipitous limestone peaks. Well-established as a domestic tourism magnet, Trang An had already acquired a reputation for over-the-top commercialism long before this latest incident. That being said, the company involved, Trang An Tourism JSC, has shown staircase venture remarkable chutzpah with its staircase venture. 

Reportedly ignoring cease-and-desist orders from the local commune as it built the staircase between August and December 2017, it was allowed to open to the public this past January and if press photos are to be believed the staircase has proven a hit with visitors. 

Illegal staircase at Trang An (credit: VnExpress/Tran Quan)

As is the way with these things, a rising public furore over the staircase finally goaded the national culture ministry to step into the fray, and just this past week it ordered the staircase's removal. Finger-pointing between local and provincial authorities has followed, yet the reality is that this is hardly an unusual tactic for unscrupulous entrepreneurs: disobey the rules and then insist you had permission all along.

As Vietnam's tourism industry continues to mature I expect that more attention will be paid to sustainable practices and we'll see fewer and fewer cases where environmental protection rules are so blatantly disregarded as was the case in Trang An. However, the existential question for Vietnam's world heritage sites is whether attitudes will change quickly enough to avoid irreversible damage in the meantime.

 

Study in contrasts: Wat Phou and Luang Prabang

Although my first impression of Laos was not positive - petty extortion at the Veun Kham border post - the country very quickly won me over with its friendly and welcoming people, its amazing landscape and rich cultural legacy.

For a multimedia overview of Laos please take a look at my first foray into travel videography with Laos: Lands of Peaks and Rivers.

For a country with such a long and illustrious history, stretching the millennia between the megalith carvers of the Plain of Jars to the legendary kings of Lane Xang, Laos today boasts just two world heritage sites: Wat Phou in the far south and the town of Luang Prabang in the north. While each is remarkable in its own way, only Luang Prabang features on South-East Asia's top-tier tourist trail, which has resulted in masses of visitors there while comparatively few make it to Wat Phou.

Luang Prabang

With daily flights from Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Hanoi, Luang Prabang is for many visitors an optional add-on to a holiday in Thailand or Vietnam. This in turn has fuelled tourism-related growth in the city and environs that verges on the unsustainable: traditional residents and merchants priced out of their properties in the old city; threats to the integrity of historical buildings and landscapes on which the city's world heritage depends; and environmental and infrastructure pressures as the city's hotel stock continues to grow unabated. 

 Highlighting the pace of change in Luang Prabang, the authors of a recent study have observed that visitor numbers have grown 890 percent between 1997 and 2016 (from 62,348 to 617,239) and the number of tourism-oriented businesses has grown 87 to 786 over the same period. In this context it is no surprise that UNESCO's World Heritage Committee has issued a stern warning to Laos regarding the impact of escalating development pressures on an already vulnerable landscape, nor that Luang Prabang has become rife with the tourist-targeting hustles and hassles that are practically non-existent elsewhere in the country. 

 

That being said, the Laotian authorities are clearly making efforts to manage and control development within the old city and significant investments are being made in the upkeep and restoration of key sites, notably Wat Xieng Thong. Moreover, despite the crowds and kitsch-peddling souvenir stores and night market, the old city's setting at a narrow strip of land between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers is outstanding.

Equally impressive is Luang Prabang's urban landscape, which features the Royal Palace, dating to 1904, dozens of ornately decorated monasteries, traditional Asian shophouses as well as stately French-era mansions, all watched over by the spirits thought to inhabit Phousi, a thickly forested hill at the centre of the old city.

Some practical details (current as of July 2017): Arriving from Vang Vieng by minivan at Luang Prabang's "tourist" bus station, it cost us 60,000 LAK  for a jumbo to take us (four people) to our hotel near Wat Xieng Thong in the old city. While many wats are free to visit (with donations welcomed) some charge an entry fee, notably Wat Xieng Thong (20,000 LAK). Meanwhile, it costs 30,000 LAK to visit the Royal Palace Museum, where a dress code, especially for women, is vigorously enforced, and 20,000 LAK to climb to That Chomsi high above the old city. For those interested in learning more about Luang Prabang's oral history, what must be the world's smallest theatre mear Wat Xieng Thong offers a great two-man show every evening for 50,000. Finally, those wishing to have their clothes washed would do well to avoid the small laundry on the side street just south of Ock Pop Tok: I will spare you the details but suffice it to say that it necessitated police involvement and was undoubtedly my least pleasant experience in Laos.

Wat Phou

The contrast between Luang Prabang and Champasak, the jumping off point for most visitors to Wat Phou, could not be greater. A sleepy village strung along the west bank of the Mekong River, Champasak has a few hotels and low-key restaurants, set among crumbling colonial-era mansions and a beautiful backdrop of rice paddies and jungle-covered hills. 

Wat Phou, or Sacred Mountain, lies about ten kilometres south-west of Champasak, and for my money is the most evocative ancient Khmer site anywhere. Inscribed as a world heritage site in 2001, the temple complex was built between the 6th and 12th centuries CE amid lush forest and under the shadow of a 1,500 metre summit, which was capped for untold centuries with a carved stone Shivalinga. And as testament to the site's religous significance down through the ages, Wat Phou boasts a number of pre-Angkorian carvings, notably the "crocodile stone" which some believe served as an altar for ritual sacrifice for the area's early inhabitants.

On the day of my visit there were just a handful of visitors, mostly Laotian along with a few tourists from neighouring countries. Having been in Siem Reap just a few days previously, the different in scale - whether in relation to the crush of tourists or the overbearing visitors centre - was stark and very much welcome.

Some practical details (current as of July 2017): Staying at a hotel north of Chamapasak, we paid 120,000 LAK for a roundtrip to Wat Phou by tuk-tuk with a stop in town on the way back. Entry tickets cost 50,000 LAK. For great food and drinks at a wonderful riverside setting, try Champasak with Love near the centre of town; we liked it so much we ate and drank there almost half a dozen over the course of three days.

Visiting Ethiopia's New Jerusalem: Lalibela's incredible rock-hewn churches

My first visit to Lalibela, far and away Ethiopia's most popular tourist destination, was neither planned nor auspicious. Flying to Axum from Gonder, bad weather at our destination resulted in a five-hour layover at the Lalibela aeroport while waiting and hoping that the skies above Axum would clear enough for us to complete our journey. Much of the waiting was done in the aeroport's second floor restaurant, which my daughter - a conoisseur of Italian cuisine - recalls as serving Ethiopia's best spaghetti and tomato sauce. Also memorable was our captain holding court with the flight crew and other hangers on at a neighbouring table for the duration of our layover. His table weighed down with plates of shiro, tibs and other delicacies, taking calls on his mobile phone, and enjoying a laugh-a-minute with his entourage, the life of a pilot in Ethiopia seems a lot more fun than anything I've seen of the harried existence of flight crews in Canadian aeroports.

Lalibela aeroport

 On our subsequent - and this time planned - stay in Lalibela we again arrived at the aeroport, only this time we skipped the restaurant and headed straight out of the terminal where we were promptly met by the driver from our hotel. The fact that airport transfers are almost always included in room rates is one of my favourite features of the Ethiopian hotel sector, and it is hard to imagine better value for money than is the case in Lalibela, where the aeroport is located almost 30km from the town centre along a winding mountain road. Difficult to reach as recently as the mid-1990s, Lalibela has since become the centrepiece of Ethiopia's "historical circuit". While the tourist influx has undoubtedly brought a measure of prosperity to both the town and surrounding region - not to mention home comforts for foreign visitors - tourism-led development clearly has a downside as well. More on this later.

Lalibela Countryside

Navigating the town's peripheral sprawl, we arrived at the Lal Hotel under a light drizzle. With over 100 rooms the Lal is the town's largest hotel and a tour group favourite. However, the rainy season and travel warnings had clearly put a damper on bookings, and perhaps as a result the hotel had a desolate feel to it, like a ski resort in the middle of summer. Concretely, this meant the swimming pool had been drained, satellite TV reception cut off, all but one of the hotel's vaunted bars and restaurants were closed and water leaked into our room whenever it rained.

Biete Ghiorghis

 Of course, Lalibela is not a place you to visit for the quality of the pool-side lounge but rather the world heritage site it is built around. In this regard, stay at almost any hotel in town and chances are you're a stone's throw away from one of the town's rock-hewn churches or associated warren of canals and subterranean passages. And they are truly amazing, not only for their outstanding workmanship and the unique history they embody, but above all because of the enduring role they play in the religious lives of Ethiopian Christians. Visiting Biete Golgotha Mikael on a fasting day when the church is thronged by the faitfful, I felt halfway between the stone-carved Nabatean temples of Petra and Copacabana beach on New Year's Eve, when thousands of white-clad followers of Macumba make offerings to Iemanjá, Goddess of the Water.

Biete Medhani Alem

As is the case elsewhere in Ethiopia, Lalibela's is understudied by historians and archaeologists, especially considering the magnitude and significance of the site. While myth and tradition has more than filled the breach in scholdarship, some features of Lalibela's history are relatively uncontested. Notably, Lalibela's rock-hewn church are thought to have been built in four or five stages, between the 7th and 13th centuries. Physically, the churches form two distinct clusters: A northern group, consisting of Biete Golgotha Mikael, Biete Mariam, Biete Denagel, Biete Maskal and  Biete Medhani Alem, and a southern group, consisting of Biete Lehem, Biete Gabriel Rafael , Biete Abba Libanos, Biete Amanuel and Biete Qeddus Mercoreus. A final church, Biete Ghiorghis, stands alone a short walk from the southern cluster, and is undoubtedly the most recognizable of all Lalibela's churches (think St George's Cross).

Worshippers' shoes left outside the sanctum

Drawing on Axumite architectural traditions, the churches' consistently square or rectangular shape belies many striking and unique features, while the layout of the site - with its subterranean passages, drainage canals and assorted caves and other dark openings - fosters a sense of otherworldliness that is consistent with Lalibela's traditional representation as the "New Jerusalem". In this regard, I found it striking how the sacred and the profane mingled so seamlessly in Lalibela. On the one hand, these are very much working churches where the faithful come in their thousands on major feast days such as Orthodox Christmas. On the other, it a key income earner for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and sustains a major tourism industry and everything good and bad that this entails.

Biete Golgotha Mikael

At the time of our visit in July 2016, the entry fee for the churches was USD50 per person and USD25 for "students", with ample care taken at the visitor centre to ensure that tickets, which are valid for five days, are not shared among multiple visitors. While the visitor centre houses a quickly forgotten museum in its basement with a collection of dusty relics and a few ancient books, those interested in learning about the history and archaeology of Lalibela are advised to visit the Lalibela Cultural Centre instead. Located next door to the Tukul Village Hotel, its displays are top notch with lots of interesting context, photos and artefacts that are bound to enrich anyone's visit to Lalibela.

Biete Mariam

 As for the church themselves, what can I say that has not already been written by someone far more learned than me? Despite on again, off again rain for the two days I spent visiting the site, the experience was nothing short of remarkable. And especially memorable for me was the distinctiveness of each of the churches, notwithstanding their superficial similarities. While Biete Ghiorghis' cruciform layout has become the face of Lalibela (if not Ethiopia) among tourism promoters, the carved statues of Biete Golgotha Mikael or the majestic columns of Biete Medhani Alem are no less striking in both their beauty and craftsmanship.

Every church has its bell

At a more prosaic level, visitors to Lalibela will undoubtedly encounter the usual characters who feature anywhere in Ethiopia frequented by large numbers of foreign visitors: guides, touts and assorted hustlers. Featuring prominently in the latter group are large numbers of "grade 10" students keen on practising their English and acquiring a gift-giving benefactor in the process. That being said, the hassles in Lalibela are very mild compared with many other places around the world, and I was left a warm impression of almost everyone I dealt with. I'm looking forward to a return trip soon!

Looking towards the sanctum sanctorum

Visiting one of Ethiopia's lesser known world heritage sites: Tiya Stelae Field

World heritage site. For visitors to Ethiopia, this label most likely evokes images of grandeur and awe. Think for example of Lalibela's singularly ornate rock-hewn churches or the breathtaking landscape of Simien Mountains National Park. White the Tiya Stelae Field is equally a world heritage site, its scale is altogether more modest than that of its better known brethren.

Tiya is located about 80km south of Addis Ababa on the road to Butajira, and the trip there is memorable in its own right, as are most road trips in Ethiopia. Leaving Addis' Bole district mid-morning in a chartered minivan - an Ethiopian tourism industry mainstay on roads where 4WD is not required - we almost immediately became snarled in the capital's ever-worsening traffic. 

Roadside scene on the Addis-Butajira Highway

Weaving our way past pedestrians, bajaji (as three-wheel taxis are known locally), broken down trucks and a donkey which had decided that the middle of a four-lane road was as good a place as any to take a nap, we finally breached Addis' sprawling suburbs and emerged into the open countryside.

The landscape south of Addis is beautiful: rolling hills, lush vegetation and small farmsteads, studded with the occasional volcanic plug and (not so attractive) roadside village. Passing through one of these villages we had the memorable experience of a massively obese man walking into the middle of the road, holding out his arms and blocking our vehicle no matter how our driver tried to navigate around him. As pedestrians and their animals walked by as though nothing odd was happening, our driver finally accepted defeat and handed over a couple crumpled notes and the man went on his way.

Most people visiting Tiya on a day-trip from the capital make two stops en route. The first is the Paleolithic site of Melka Kunture. About one kilometre west of the highway down a rough track, the site apparently features a fine museum containing many impressive stone age artefacts. I say apparently because we did not get to see the museum ourselves, arriving too late in the day and finding the entrance gates already locked.

The rural landscape south of Addis is verdant and lush

We had better luck at our second stop at Adadi Maryam, which has the distinction of being the most southerly of Ethiopia's rock-hewn churches. Located on high ground about 30 kilometres west of the main road, Adadi Maryam is thought to date from the 13th century CE, and was reputedly built by King Lalibela himself. Whether this is true or not, the church remained in use for the next three hundred years, when it fell into disrepair until it was rediscovered by Emperor Menelik II in the late 19th century.

Sunday market at Adadi village

Although the church is a popular pilgrimage destination for Ethiopian Christians, there was little road traffic on the day of our visit, apart from the occasional herd of sheep and goats and a few farmers heading home after a morning spent tending to their fields. However, as the farmland gave way to the outskirts of Adadi. where the eponymous church is located, we discovered why we had seen so few people on the way in: everyone seemed already to be in the village, buying, selling or just walking about at the local weekly market. Dozens of donkeys and horses were tied up on either side of the road as we approached the market square, and soon the way forward was entirely blocked with a mass of people. Yet our driver crawled along, with people moving out of our path good-naturedly, and soon we arrived at the church gates.

Adadi Maryam Church

Having paid our 5USD entry fee we clambered down slippery stone steps to the church proper. Having visited Lalibela earlier in our trip I will admit to being a little disappointed by the much less finely carved stonework. However, in other respects Adadi Maryam is impressive. At 20 metres long and 16 metres wide the church is imposing in its size and layout, with large (carpeted) chambers leading into the maqdas, or Holy of Holies, where only priests may enter. However, even without delicately wrought stonework or elaborate wall-paintings, what struck me most about Adadi Maryam was the sense that it was above all a working church, where people come to worship as they have for centuries, with no effort to sanitize or commodify the experience.

Interior of Adadi Maryam Church

Leaving Adadi Maryam, the rest of the trip to Tiya took the better part of an hour. The world heritage site sits at the end of an unpaved but well signed road about 200 metres east of the main highway. Surrounded by farmland and thickly vegetated with tall grass and shrubs, there is almost nothing that gives away the site's significance as one approaches. No aspiring tour guides or souvenir hawkers, no roofing or other site protection - just a modest hut where a local man sell trinkets and a tiny ticket building where we were given a laboriously written receipt after paying our USD6 entrance fee.

"Welcome to Tiya Ethiopian World Heritage Site"

The Tiya stelae field, entered via a brightly coloured gate in a low-slung barbed wire fence, consists of 46 standing stones, regarding which remarkably little is known. Erected between the 10th and 15th centuries CE, they are of much more recent vintage than the obelisks of Aksum, yet their meaning and significance remains shrouded in mystery. The stelae vary in height with the tallest reaching five metres, and they include both anthropomorphic and phallic shapes. Most also bear elaborately carved symbols, variously reminiscent of swords, leaves and human figures.

Tiya stelae field

Despite being designated a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1980, very little archaeological work has been undertaken at Tiya. However, evidence of mass graves of individuals whose remains bear signs of violence suggest that the stones may be grave markers for warriors killed in battle. Other finds in the area include Middle Stone Age tools as well as several tombs.

Tiya stela detail

On the day of our visit, we had the ruins almost entirely to ourselves, and traipsing across the site it was easy to imagine all manner of ancient artefacts waiting to be found beneath the uneven ground. The stelae themselves were striking for their recurring motifs, which must have been fiendishly difficult to carve in the hard rock. Not for the first time in Ethiopia we were struck by the country's remarkable historical legacy, which is as rich as that of any country in the world, yet so much remains unknown or unqueried by professional archaeologists and historians. While the protection afforded to Tiya through its world heritage designation is an important first step, clearly that there is much more to be done to preserve and study this remarkable site.

Sword motif on Tiya stela

Globalization, cheap lemons and the crumbling away of a world heritage site

Globalization and production outsourcing have been blamed for many woes - Donald J. Trump's recent attacks on China being a classic of the genre - but I've never seen a story this week linking cheap foreign fruit to the possible destruction of one of the world's most iconic world heritage sites.

The Amalfi Coast, located in southern Italy in the Province of Salerno, was inscribed on UNESCO's world heritage list in 1997. With its picturesque villages and dramatic landscape, the region has long been a favourite destination for both Italian and foreign tourists.

Amalfi Coast (photo credit: Gilbert Bochenek

However, leading geologists have reportedly issued a warning that the coastal zone is at risk of crumbling into the sea. The problem is that the region's lemon farmers, who have built and maintained a system of stone retaining walls known as "lemon terraces" over hundreds of years, are abandoning their groves as lemon cultivation becomes a losing proposition in the face of cheaper lemons grown abroad.

The impact, according to geologists, is a mounting risk of landslides, and with it the natural beauty on which the region's world heritage designation and associated tourism depends.

Lemon orchard, Amalfi Coast (photo credit: Jensens)

Without wishing to romanticize what is undoubtedly back-breaking and sometimes dangerous work, it is sad to think that traditional lemon farming on the Amalfi Coast is disappearing, and with it the distinct character, history and perhaps even the physical landscape of a uniquely beautiful region.