The Null Device

Posts matching tags 'tourism'

2010/11/6

A resort in the Maldives has been offering wedding packages to (mostly Western) tourists, where, for $1300, they can have a "traditional Maldivean" ceremony. Unbeknownst to the tourists, the actual ceremony consisted of a stream of obscenities and nonsequiturs in Dhivehi, directed at the clueless couple. This only emerged when a staff member uploaded the video of one of the ceremonies, originally taped for the couple in question, to YouTube:

“Before buggering a chicken, check if the hole is clean. That is because the people of the countries that you are from are familiar with the taste of the ****holes of chicken,” he chants, still with hands held over the couples’.
The concluding chant is delivered in a gentler, softer voice: “Keep fornicating frequently, and keep spreading hatred among people. The children you will have from this marriage will all be bastard swine.”

détournement maldives postcolonialism pranks tourism 1

2007/11/4

A new study has discovered the phenomenon of suicide tourism, which involves people committing suicide choosing to do so at or near iconic landmarks or historic locations, and travelling to do so. The study claims that one in every 10 suicides in Manhattan is by an out-of-towner who travelled to the city expressly to die:

Some 274 suicides by non-residents were recorded in Manhattan between 1990 and 2004, more than half of them as a result of long falls from bridges and high-rise commercial buildings, including hotels, according to the report.
I once read that luxury hotels are a big suicide magnet, with many treating themselves to a luxurious exit, though this is the first time I heard of suicide tourism as such (not counting specific examples, such as various bridges).

culture nyc society suicide tourism travel 0

2005/8/4

A list of some of the more unusual holiday options advertised, from bog snorkelling in Wales to seal hunting in Norway, and from the oft-mentioned Chernobyl tours to spending time homeless on the streets:

After paying a registration fee - which has to be raised by begging - participants are sent out to live on the streets, beg for sustenance and learn the workings of the inner-city. It is an initiation into the life of a street dweller. Participants are asked not to shave or wash their hair for 10 days before the retreat starts. They should come with one piece of ID, an empty plastic bag and wear old clothes (definitely no change of outfit necessary). Organisers promise to provide a list of soup kitchens and shelters.

chernobyl homelessness poverty tourism 1

2004/12/6

French-American relations have suffered another blow, thanks to Paris being inundated with tourists looking for scenes from the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's repackaging of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in thriller form. When told that the places depicted in the book don't hide the secrets of the Holy Grail and the Merovingian bloodline of Jesus, many tourists become abusive and accuse their guides of covering up the truth for the Catholic Church. Or just steal the signs pointing out that the Da Vinci Code is fiction.

In other news, the EFF is not actually an anarchist terrorist group. (No, that'd be the Cypherpunks mailing list.)

france the da vinci code tourism usa 1

2004/2/22

Want to see the Great Barrier Reef? You've got fewer than 50 years before it dissolves, thanks to global warming.

australia environment global warming great barrier reef tourism 2

2003/12/21

The bus from Byron Bay to Brisbane passed through the Tweed Heads-Coolangatta-Surfers Paradise-Gold Coast Recreational Axis, a scary and depressing place if there is one. Miles and miles of pastel-coloured high-rise hotels, luxury-apartment buildings and toy monorails, filing cabinets for self-contained family-units on holiday, enjoying recreation without the inconvenience of unwelcome mixing with strangers; it is a vast monument to leisure on an industrial scale. Even the office buildings are salmon-pink or mango-orange, with matching tubular metal balconies; between this, the locals flitted about, bronzed and godlike, in their convertible cars.

gold coast grim meathook present queensland tourism 0

2003/1/31

George W. Bush's Axis of Evil as extreme holiday destination.

North Korea was nowhere near as tough as I thought it would be, but Cuba was a real disappointment because it's so touristy.
Iraq should be popular as Egypt as a tourist destination; it's got the Garden of Eden, the first ever city, the Hanging Gardens, yet hardly anyone visits.
On the third day (in Iran) three guys burst in while we were talking to some students. They took us back to the hotel and turned our rooms over. When they found cameras, tapes and tourist visas, they decided that we were spies.

iran iraq north korea tourism 2

2002/10/18

An American tourist's account of North Korea, that bizarre bastion of fetishistic neo-Stalinism and insular paranoia.

The spectacle was something I'll never forget, though perhaps not for the reasons Mr. Huk and his countrymen intended. The show was so precise as to be robotic. No one outside the group, everyone buried within it. All done with a flair and focus that was chilling to behold. The model of mass unity that was being held up as proof of greatness and independence smacked of mindlessness. Of course everyone in the performance was human, with their own hopes, dreams and desires. This though was something to be eliminated, not tolerated or encouraged. These were things that still had to be rooted out in an effort to build the utopian, Juche-centered society. The zeal in Mr. Huk's voice spoke not of a country, but of a cult.

(via Reenhead)

north korea totalitarianism tourism travel 8

This will be the comment popup.
Post a reply
Display name:

Your comment:


Please enter the text in the image above here: