Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Wat Bo



I've officially been in Siem Reap for about a week now and set out on a walk around the apartment.  Walking down the street I go into Wat Bo, a  beautiful pagoda established in the 18th century, but there's a problem, the pagoda's main building is closed.  I don't ask too many questions, since there is no one around despite the sound of activity in the area, and am happy looking at the exterior of the building and all of the structures around.

 All of a sudden I begin to hear the words "Hello, Hello", I have no idea where this is all coming from.   After looking around, it seems to be coming from behind a bunch of bushes, from where 3 orange-clad monks carrying notebooks emerge.  Always happy to practice their English, they ask me my name and where I am from, when I ask them about the pagoda, they point to a forth monk and say, "He speaks better English".  The fourth monk comes out to say Hello and tells me a little bit about the closed building behind us, before saying, "Would you like to see it?"  He opens the wooden doors and windows, letting the light unveil a large room where most of the walls are covered in wall paintings of the Reamker.  He tells me of the many uses the Pagoda has gone through over the years and explains how he has taught himself English, even though it gives him a headache.  We laugh and he finishes his sentence with, "but I come here to do meditation and headache goes away." 

Monday, September 28, 2009

Authenticity of Experience




Alarm rings, snooze on, alarm rings, and I’m up.  I walk out of my East Village, 400 sq foot apartment, and walk for 15 minutes to Union Square Station.  After a 35 minute commute I arrive at one of New York’s landmark luxury hotels on the southern tip of Central Park—worlds apart from where I woke up in Alphabet City.

As Marketing Manager, my job was to know the luxury customer better than anyone in the city, yet I was far from being one of them.  Yet this separation from my target market, presented me with the insight to bring forth something different, to bring forth innovation.  Just like innovation does not come from focus groups—they will only tell you what they already know and what is already on market—I was an outsider looking in for new big ideas.


Authenticity of Experience

My travel pattern was also not up to “Luxury Standards,” where I would opt for the off-the-beaten-path $20 or less guest house as opposed to the 5-diamond setting. In fact, in the 2+ years I had this position, the only times I stayed at comparable properties to the one I represented was on business or when redeeming points. Why?  I was seeking for an Authenticity of Experience that, I figured, could only be gained by keeping yourself outside of a hotel compound.  This was never done on purpose, it was just the type of traveler I am, but it finally hit me on a 3 day hike near the town of Lares in Peru.

On the second day of hike, after spending most of the first day sick and half way through a 9 hour trek that took us from 3,000 to 4,600 meters above sea level, we ran into 2 kids who were in the middle of the mountain herding their llamas. The kids came over to say “Hola”, one of the few words they knew in Spanish outside of their native Quechua.   I looked around and thought to myself, this is why we came camping and didn’t stay at a hotel, this is why we chose this trail and not the famous Inca trail, this is why I travel.

As opposed to the Inca trail, the Lares trail is not yet a tourist attraction.  The trial is mostly used by the communities living in the mountains to get to the town of Lares to trade.  In the entire time of hiking we only saw 2 other groups of external travelers.  The Authenticity of Experience came from the fact that I did not meet the people native to the land I was visiting at a hotel lobby, I did not learn about their culture and their traditional clothes from a buffet dinner show.  I met those two kids, and the many others along the hike, in their homes, in the middle of an awe inspiring mountain landscape.  There was nothing commercial or staged about the encounters, it felt real, it felt like an true interaction.

I by no means seek to devalue the efforts many hotels go through to bring a slice of the local culture into their properties for the guests to experience and the way these exchanges have in many instances been able to maintain some local cultural identity in an ever more globalized world.  I only mean to point out the type of experiences that have inspired and propelled people to travel to far lands for years. My real goal is to find a way for the tourism industry to capitalize on this Authenticity of Experience in a way that is both sustainable and respectful. 

In that same spirit, I have packed up and moved on to Siem Reap, Cambodia, from where I wish to continue working, traveling, and living for the Authenticity of Experience.