Day 31: Day Trip from Kyoto to Arashiyama

I started off this morning reading this article entitled “The next trend in traveling… DON’T!”

https://brightthemag.com/the-next-trend-in-travel-is-dont-226d4aba17f6?gi=d719013f6967

That was a bit eye opening – the author argues that we all need to stop traveling because the crowds are causing serious damage to the environment.

As much as I love traveling, (I think it broadens our minds, our kids’ minds, exposes us to new ideas, etc. etc.) I can’t say that I completely disagree that something needs to be done about the impact of enormous crowds.

When in Thailand, we learned that they are closing certain popular beaches completely for several months in order to attempt to allow them to recover from over-use. A study was conducted on one particular beach that determined that it could handle roughly 2000 visitors per day, and it was receiving over 5000. We thought that was an interesting approach in trying to benefit from tourism, and protect the environment as well.

We have been repeatedly shocked by the amount of garbage in the forests in both Thailand and Cambodia. Apparently Siem Reap proper has some garbage collection, but the suburbs and surrounding areas don’t. So people pile up their family garbage and, when needed, they light the garbage pile on fire.

But in the meantime the garbage gets picked at by animals and dragged around so it’s quite literally everywhere.

We learned from our Grasshopper Tour Guide in Cambodia that when plastic first arrived in Cambodia, many farmers thought that they could compost it in their family farms just like all the rest of their garbage, so some plastics have been incorporated right in their fields. Wild.

We were also struck by how many water bottles one family of 5 can go through in a few weeks of vacation in areas where the water is not safe to drink. I really think all successful hotels need to have potable water fountains in their lobbies so guests can refill their own bottles at a minimum.

Today we went to Arashiyama. We heard there were monkeys there that would come right up to you in the forest, so we thought that might be fun to check out.

We went through a UNESCO world heritage site called the Tenryuji Temple which is a Rinzai Zen temple and to Sogen Pond garden. The garden was truly lovely.

We exited the garden and went into the bamboo forest, which was not very big, and which was really crowded. They have a barb wire fence with some stalks along it to pretend that it’s natural, which is trying to keep people out of the forest, and to keep them from writing their names in the bamboo.

The crowds got bigger and bigger as we headed towards the monkey park, to the point that we decided against it, and turned around – back to Kyoto.

The crowds throughout this whole trip have been eye-opening. And we have been here in what is considered the off-season. Maybe it’s the Canadian in me, but I long for some wide open spaces!!!!

Anyway, tonight we went to Pontocho – an area packed with restaurants along the side of a river. It was spectacular! Crowded, but spectacular.