Are You Really Ready for “Authentic” Travel Experiences?

by Robert McGarvey

The Phocuswire headline caught my eye: “WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TRAVELERS FIND TOURS TOO AUTHENTIC?”  For some months I’d been monitoring a surging American traveler insistence that what they want is travel experiences that are authentic – and part of me well knew there are limits to the “authenticity” we want to experience on holiday.

In the particular case mentioned in the Phocuswire story a traveler complained loudly when during a tour of a local food market in Hanoi he came upon a whole fried dog.

What would you say and do?

As I picture this scene in my head, I am taken back 30 years to a trip I made to Sweden, sponsored by Absolut, where lunch one day was at the beach at an eel shack where the edible was eel paired with scrambled eggs and bread slices that resembled Wonderbread. Oh, and vast quantities of vodka.  

Do understand there is a long tradition of eel fishing in Sweden.  It’s now under attack but 30 years ago it was a shining example of traditional Sweden which my Absolut hosts wanted to expose me to.  On the same trip I spent a night in an historic hunting lodge where wealthy city Swedes would go, 100 years ago and probably today too, to hunt deer which would show up on the dinner table. 

I ate the venison and enjoyed it.

The eel was a different matter.

I had never eaten eel before and indeed my only experience of eel as an edible was from the scene in The Tin Drum (viewer discretion advised).  There was no way I intended to eat that thing and I didn’t. But I did eat some scrambled eggs – fluffy and tasty – and even had a few bites of the bland white bread.  Of course I swallowed my share of vodka, probably more as I contemplated the horrors of this lunch, and I don’t believe the host was aggrieved about my eel abstinence.

What I did not do is rant about eel eating. Others in my small group seemed to enjoy their bites of house smoked eel and indeed even I got that the very scene and the meal represented hundreds of years of Swedish culinary history.  

Back to Hanoi and the crispy dog – my view (which departs from that of many experts quoted in the Phocuswire piece – is that the problem is entirely the sensitive traveler’s, most certainly not the tour organizer who, in my view, had no responsibility to prepare travelers for the possibility of seeing food items that would disturb then.

Heavens, what bubble of ignorance do these people live in?  The Humane Society plainly says: “An estimated 30 million dogs are killed for human consumption each year across Asia in a brutal trade that involves terrible cruelty to animals and often, criminal activity. From 10-20 million dogs are slaughtered in China, up to 1 million in South Korea, 1 million in Indonesia, and around 5 million in Viet Nam.”

Please, don’t tell me you are surprised – indeed horrified – by cooked dog in a Vietnam market.

The world does not share our US food peculiarities.

I still remember, with a shiver, a years ago trip with a chef to an authentic (that is, for locals) food market in Bali – yes, that idyllic island – where a half dozen adorable little piglets were putting up a shriek as they awaited purchase (and one hopes swift delivery from this mortal coil). They knew their fate and they weren’t going without a howl. As for me, I shrugged and attempted to avert my eyes (and ears).

But I did not tell the Balinese to go vegan and repent for their sins. But I suppose I might have suggested they see Babe.

In France many eat horse meat which in the US we view as verboten, although how we justify chowing down on Elsie but refuse to eat Trigger is beyond me.  

In Mexico there’s rampant consumption of insects and, no, I wouldn’t personally crunch on a beetle, I also certainly wouldn’t complain about a tour that involved a stop at a bug emporium.  

We eat differently than people in much of the world do.

But the real question is how much “authenticity” do we want?

My guess is not a helluva lot.

That’s ok but, please, stop whining about it.  If you sign up for an”authentic” tour, stay quiet on the ride.

Or just stay home in the first place.