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Lifeenv ironment phi lo so ph y h eroes

When the Alps cAll you not, nor the Allures of the pArisiAn

mArkets enchAnt you, but the AbAndoned buildings in pripyAt

intrigue you And horrifying tAles of heinous crimes get your

pulse rAcing, then you Are in for A vAcAtion thAt could chAnge

you foreverAnu GulmohAr throWs light on dArk tourism.

holidAys

travelscience paranormal sports

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the sunday indian 50 23 may 2010

l i f e

We havenot hadanytours to

the eruption site at Eyjaalla-jkull as the surrounding areahas been closed. We did, how-ever, take almost 700 personsin dierent tours to see theeruption in Fimmvorduhals, aew weeks beore the eruptionin Eyjaallajkull. One tourwas a coach tour that droveinto a valley next to the erup-tion so passengers could viewrom a sae distance. Anothertour o ours drove the passen-gers up to Myrdalsjokull gla-cier and rom there they wenton snowmobiles to see theeruption up close. Te third

one was a super jeep tourdriving in as close as one kmrom the eruption site. Ourcustomers were rom all over

the world UK, USA, Scan-dinavia. Many Icelanderswent there as well. o see a

volcanic eruption is once in a

lietime experience or mostpeople. You get to see theorces o nature in actionwhich is just indescribable,said Gudrun Torisdottir,Sales Manager, Iceland Excur-sions Gray Line Iceland(www.grayline.is). Te disas-trous impact o the volcanoeruption rom orcing Ice-landers to ee their homes at2am to travellers stranded ordays at various airports hascaptured the worlds attention.In addition to voicing theiroutrage, the multitudes werealso seen struggling to pro-nounce Eyjaallajkull (AY-uh-yat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh).Iceland has been grapplingwith a severe nancial crunchand the oreign moneybrought in by the touristeruption ollowing the erup-tion o the volcano gave some

welcome relie to the coun-trys government. It alsoposed a challenge o handling

visitors 24x7 and rescuingseveral o those getting tooclose to the zone and not tak-ing sucient precautions.

Cut to Gopinatham, asmall village in Karnataka,which is (in)amous or beinghome to Veerappan, the orestbrigand, responsible or thereign o terror. He murdered184 people, smuggled sandal-wood worth Rs 103 crore andpoached about 200 elephantsor twenty long years on 6,000sq km o orests. While theorests have nally been reedo this bandit, his exploits stillarouse much interest among

the people. Te governmenthas come up with a plan tolaunch tours based on the lieand trails o the notorious

smuggler/poacher. Tiswould include a trekkingscheme called Mystery rails,which would include legends

and myths around Veerappanand re-trace his hideouts andescape routes. K ViswanathaReddy, ourism Director,does not take kindly to theterror tourism tag though. It(the tour) will denitely haveuniversal attention thoughnot universal appeal. It will besuccessul because it is in anegative note, said Reddy.When presented with theconcept o the tour, Sue StClair, a Canadian, said, Yes, Iwould be interested in under-taking such a tour. Sue is asel-conessed dark tourist.What is a dark tourist youask? Dark tourism is the acto travel to sites associatedwith death, suering and theseemingly macabre [Stone,P.R (2006) A Dark ourismSpectrum, 146], or peoplewho travel not just or the

sun, sand and shopping, butor a chance to glimpse at themacabre and gulp down eachand every horriying detail.

While German exterminationcamp at Auschwitz, Poland, isperhaps the best known siteor dark tourism, Sue listedher avourite dark spots to us,Te ower o London (grislyhistory), Jack Te Ripperwalking tours (London, Eng-land), Underground Cata-combs (Paris, France), Dracu-la ours in Romania, all havea very dark history, and areenjoyable. Te volcano inIceland isnt her idea o Ibizathough. I would not want tobe breathing in that ash norrisking being too close to it,and possibly being injured orworse. I preer dark history,she reiterated.

Hinterland ravels (www.hinterlandtravel.com) is a UK-based company which hasbeen organising tours to Iraqor 30 years. Owner & Man-

PArt of me hAs AlwAys wondered

whAt A PlAce would be like if PeoPle

suddenly vAnished

aging Director Geo Hannsaid, In Iraq, although weconcentrate on archaeologicaland historical sites, we also

visit the Shia pilgrimage orShrine cities o Karbala andNaja. We look at some recenthistory sites such as SaddamsPalaces Inevitably, we dopass through or stop at placeswhere atrocities have beencommitted. We mentionthese, but do not make it anintegral part o any o ourtours. For example, whenexploring Kurdistan, we visitHalabja and the prison inSulaimaniyah.

On April 26, 1986, Cherno-byl's Reactor No. 4 explodedand caused the worst nuclearpower plant accident in histo-ry. As radioactive plume lledthe atmosphere, millions edrom Chernobyl and neigh-bouring towns. Still unt orhuman habitation, there are,however, tourist companiesthat will take you into the 30

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the sunday indian 51 23 may 2010

d a r k t o u r i s m

(prev page) Extermination camps at

Auschwitz, Poland; (From left) Fim-mvorduhals volcano; Hotel Taj Mahal

Palace, Mumbai; (box pic) remains ofthe Chernobyl, Pripyat nursery.

km ring o the exclusion zone.A twenty-six-year-old ladyrom England (name with-held) is one o the millions

who have undertaken such atour (See Diary o a darktourist). She recalls, I wasmotivated to visit Chernobylout o morbid interest and be-cause I have a ascinationwith post-apocalyptic scenar-ios. Part o me has alwayswondered what a place wouldbe like i people suddenly

vanished. How would naturetake over? What would the si-lence be like?

But what makes people or-sake a trip to Switzerland andinstead, head to Iraq or Cam-bodia? Experts believe themotivations o a dark touriststem rom the need to height-en their sense o mortality,a quest or a novel experience,a celebration o crime anddeviance. Reverence, nostal-gia or plain basic voyeurismcould also be the reason

to visit a cemetery or a battle-eld or a shipwreck or adisaster site like GroundZero in New York or Jallian-wala Bagh in Amritsar. Re-

veals Geo Hann, My clientsare motivated to see theseplaces or themselves becauseo the sheer volume o mediacoverage. Tey are also suspi-cious o the motives o thatnews. Tey want to commu-nicate with the people inthese areas.

Most people may eel thelabel o a dark tourist as de-rogatory, but the truth is thatalmost all o us at some pointin time have been a darktourist. Many o us wouldhave been to Te Indira Gan-dhi Memorial Museum, andwalked in the rooms whereour ormer prime ministeronce lived, and around theexact spot where she ell aferher bodyguards bullets toreinto her body. I, or one, have

taken the tour, and like anunashamed voyeur wonderedhow lie would have been inthe same rooms, and pausedwith reverence and grie atthe spot where she was slain.But voyeuristic rubberneck-ing around a site o crisis canresult in hurting peoples sen-timents; case in point whenactor Riteish Deshmukh andlmmaker Ram Gopal Vermadecided to take a tour o theaj Mahal Hotel in Mumbairight afer the three-day siege.

Dark tourist sites can bedisturbing places where theexcesses o humanity havecaused much grie and serveas reminders to the gravestmistakes and misdemeanourso mankind. As long as onegoes with the right attitude,theres a lot that one can takeaway rom the experience.

Chernobyl itsel isntentirely abandoned,but the neighbouring towno Pripyat is a proper ghosttown. We were taken aroundby a guide with a Geigercounter and we were allowed

to see the actual reactor butnot or too long due to theradiation levels. We werentallowed to touch the ground,step on the grass or touch themonument outside the powerstation. We were taken to thehospital, school/kindergarten,airground, police station,apartments, culture centreand the old sports stadium.What was once a playing feldwas now more like a orest

and all o the buildings hadthings let behind such as

documentation. The radia-tion levels were lower hereand we were allowed hal anhour to wander around eachabandoned building.

Chernobyl is a placewhere humanity only livesas memories in derelictstructures but that nature isreclaiming. It was tinged withsadness that Pripyat lookedlike such a wonderul place tohave lived beore the reactorexploded. I was saddened tosee all the abandoned toysin the Pripyat Kindergarten.

Chernobyl is a place that is sopeaceul but when you see allthese buildings and hear onlythe voices o birds, you knowinstinctively that something isvery wrong. I do not have anydefnite plans to visit otherplaces with a troubled history,but I would not be averse tothe idea o visiting Chernobylonce again.

- A g, 26,ea

diAry of AdArk tourist