North Korea: yes or no?
Saying that you are going to visit one of these places will at least cause a raised eyebrow that can lead to a heated argument. The controversy is served.
NORTH KOREA
"A unique experience", "getting into a time tunnel" or "visiting the most hermetic country on the planet" are some of the claims of the agencies that offer organized trips in which taking photographs without permission is prohibited and relics of the communism. It's all true, including the controversy generated by supporting financially, albeit indirectly, the crazy and criminal government of Kim Jong Un making a trip in which the interaction with the local population is similar to what a plant and a stone could have. The case of North Korea takes crazy to an extreme level , but it is worth remembering that there are many dictatorships and authoritarian governments that receive the main income from tourism that enters their countries. The controversy over whether they should be visited or not is served.
THE 'GIRAFFE WOMEN' OF THAILAND
It is an extreme and paradigmatic case in the history of how tourism changes a population . The visit to kayan tribes , the famous women with necks elongated by gold rings, is one of the most popular tourist activities in the north of the country, but it generates great controversy not without first-world moral scruples. Voices are raised that qualify the experience like a visit to a human zoo and denounce the exploitation they suffer . The problem is both anthropological and political: the Kayan are Burmese refugees and their situation in Thailand is complex; today they live mainly thanks to tourism , which has become a sort of prison and sustenance at the same time artificially prolonging a practice - that of ringing women's necks - that was disappearing.
HUNTING DESTINATIONS
They can be from an exotic safari to hunt elephants in Botswana to a hunt on an Andalusian farm in pursuit of deer to decorate the living room , but confessing a hunting trip in certain environments can cause the hunter to be tarred and feathered. Those in favor of hunting defend themselves by saying that it is a regularized process to control the populations of animals within a limited territory, although the opponents deny it even the consideration of sport.
The giraffe women of Thailand
ZOOS AND AQUARIUMS
It does not matter how well cared for the animals are or the didactic intention that defends their existence: many argue that zoos are antediluvian They violate the rights of animals and should not exist. And it is true that a conscientious adult or a sensitive child cannot pass the cages or fish tanks of certain animals without a knot in the stomach. About nature parks type Cabarceno , there is also controversy because they are accused of giving a illusion of freedom and open spaces when they are still enclosures with animals locked up for the entertainment of humans. Reading on a plaque about the habitat of the species that it needs to walk about twenty hectares a day and comparing it with the reduced space they have in a zoo should make more than one uncomfortable.
VALLEY OF THE FALLEN
The huge cross Valley of the Fallen generates as many controversies as the recent past of Spain. Leaving aside those who visit the site to honor the tombs of Franco and José Antonio, opinions are divided between those who see in it a symbol of fascism and are in favor of its disappearance and those who prefer that the monument remain as a testimony of a time and a place. There are still few who can strip it of political meaning and find in it an unexpected pop icon.
SCENARIOS OF CRIMES AND TRAGEDIES
We know that many of the famous crimes have become tourist attractions, that people come the day after an accident to browse the area and that the sad events of history are literally everywhere. To the visit to the concentration camps, to the place where the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima or to the murder route of Jack the Ripper in London could be added an infinite string of scenes of more recent tragedies, and this makes us wonder what is the difference between visiting Whitechapel or Alcàsser. Is it alone in the number of years that have passed?
A safari in Africa
AMSTERDAM
It does not matter its incredible cultural offer or the beauty of its grooved streets. A good part of the people who visit the city do so looking for sex and drugs. Legal, yes. The drug theme is not as extravagant as teenage end-of-year excursions would like to believe, but the sexual section, with its sordid point and in its tourist trap context, does not usually disappoint. The red light district is a tourist attraction not only for those who seek the services of a prostitute, in which shop windows and fluorescents attract just like the works of art in the Rijksmuseum . From there to drawing conclusions about the advisability or not of regularizing these illegal activities in other countries is a very small step.
SPRING BREAK IN FLORIDA
We are familiar with the concept thanks to the ubiquitous American series and movies: when winter is still harsh at universities in New England or Ohio, hordes of students embark for a week-long vacation in Florida with a basic objective: the despiporre . Forgetting about exams involves sunbathing, endless drunkenness that doesn't give way to hangovers, and a multitude of girls showing their tits to the camera. The concept has spread to countries like England, touching us closely when the British choose Salou, Lloret or Gandía for a week of drunkenness, sex and sun. Vomiting in the streets and screaming until the wee hours of the morning versus full pockets of hoteliers.
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