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Mercedes Hutton

Copy Editor and Post Magazine Columnist


A load of rubbish
Southeast Asia’s beaches have been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons recently, with the closure of Boracay, in the Philippines, and Thailand’s Maya Bay (of 2000 film The Beach fame) drawing attention to the trappings of too much tourism. 
However, these once-paradisiacal destinations aren’t the only ones reeling from a huge influx of visitors, with many wondering who’s next on the hit list. 
Philippines: workers on tourist island Boracay fear paradise will be lost with closure
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources is keeping busy. Popular dive area Coron Bay was recently found to be unsafe for swimmers because of dangerous levels of faecal coliform – a type of bacteria found in human and animal excrement – in the sea. 


Last year, the highest level recorded was more than 25 times the threshold, according to a March 25 report in The Philippine Star, proving a threat to the nearby mangroves as well as the health of tourists and locals. 
This comes just six months after the Philippine Daily Inquirer declared that Coron was “the next big thing in Philippine travel”.

Elsewhere in the region, the outlook isn’t much rosier. Phuket welcomed a record 8.4 million visitors in 2017, an increase of 11.3 per cent on the previous year, according to market research provider C9 Hotelworks. That is a lot of people for an island with a population of 500,000, and they bring with them not insignificant amounts of rubbish. Online portal Phuket News reported on March 25 that the island’s incinerators were unable to keep up with the volume of waste received during high season, leading to the build-up of a “trash mountain”.
Diver films shocking underwater video of plastic garbage wasteland in Bali
Phuket is far from alone in battling rising tides of refuse. Bali’s own ocean of plastic is well documented, accountable more to the fact that Indonesia is the second-largest contributor of marine plastic pollution after China than to tourism. From December to March, visitors to Bali were greeted with thousands of tons of rubbish, leading authorities to declare a “garbage emergency”, according to a report in British newspaper The Telegraph on December 28. 
Unless these issues are addressed, it seems reasonable to expect additional closures might be on the horizon. In the meantime, we should all remember to be responsible tourists and, at the very least, take our rubbish away with us. 

Oh deer! Chinese tourists attacked in Nara
The compact city of Nara ranks consistently among the top 10 tourist attractions in Japan, with people flocking to the country’s first capital to visit the impressive Todaiji Temple and get up close and personal with its furry inhabitants: about 1,500 wild deer. 
Considered to be messengers to the gods in the Shinto religion, the animals are significantly less welcoming than they appear on most marketing materials. On February 8, The Japan Times reported that there had been a record number of deer bites between April 1 last year and January 31. Of the 164 cases, about 80 per cent involved tourists, most of them Chinese. 
Japan’s Nara Park issues warning after deer bite hundreds of tourists, many of them Chinese
Nips were often incurred while trying to compose the perfect picture, which, in certain cases, included teasing the deer with crackers or even trying to climb onto their backs, prefectural official Yuichiro Kitabata told The Japan Times. 
The message from the heavenly couriers seems clear – please leave them alone. 

Don’t dress ‘sexy’ during Songkran, says Thai government
Songkran splashes down on April 13 to usher in the traditional Thai new year. The annual festival has its roots in religious rituals but is better known as a rather protracted water fight. It is also, unfortunately, a hotbed of sexual assault, according to a 2016 survey conducted by Thailand’s Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, which indicated that more than half of the 1,800 women asked had suffered sexual harassment during the festivities. 
Songkran, everything you need to know about Thailand’s famous new year water fight
Ahead of this year’s revelries, the Department of Local Administration released a controversial public-safety announcement telling women to dress appropriately and not to “dress sexy” to avoid becoming victims of sexual harassment, the Bangkok Post reported on March 22 – spectacularly myopic “advice” that does nothing to address the problem. 
Stay safe if you’re celebrating.


If you’re tired of being told what to see in Japan, try this no-frills tourism

Here are 5 ways to enter China without a visa – by land, sea or air

Is Bali’s Kuta Beach disappearing? Coastal erosion crisis threatens famed shoreline

Why modern art museum Dib Bangkok is a must-visit destination in Thailand

Asia travel

Boracay closure highlights ugly side to tourism boom in Southeast Asia

Also, some ill-considered advice from Thai authorities ahead of this week’s Songkran celebrations

Tourists and deer at the entrance to Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan.

Boats moored in Coron Bay in the Philippines. Picture: Jon Butters

Tourists sunbathe on a beach on Boracay in the Philippines, in March 2018. Picture: AP

Chinese flock to Japan for cherry blossom season, but are they welcome?

Chinese tourists in Tokyo’s Ueno Park during cherry blossom season. Picture: Kyodo

People wait for the start of ride-hailing company Grab's fifth anniversary news conference in Singapore June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

Chinese tourists climb cherry blossom trees in Japan.

Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok.

Duterte’s ‘cesspool’ Boracay Island set for closure. Or is it?

Scavengers sift through piles of rubbish on the Philippine resort island of Boracay. Picture: AFP

Uluwatu Bali

Tourists at Suvarnabhumi

Philippine military chief General Roy Cimatu shows the location on the map during the press conference 07 June 2002 in Military Headquarters in Manila where the US couple and a Filipina nurse Ediborah Yap attempt by the Philippine military to rescue them from Abu Sayyaf Muslim rebels after more than a year of captivity ended in tragedy near the town of Sirawai in the Zamboanga peninsula. A US missionary Martin Burnham and a Filipina nurse were killed Friday. AFP PHOTO/Joel NITO

Is Bangkok the next Singapore or Tokyo? Thailand’s military government certainly hopes so

Plus, Airbnb China will soon be sharing guest and host details with authorities and Maya Bay, of The Beach fame, set to close

Shutterstock image shows Idyllic Maya Bay Beach, Phi Phi Islands, Thailand, is showing the strains of being a honeypot tourist destination with overcrowding, circa September, 2017 [02JANUARY2018 FEATURES]

FILE PHOTO: A woman talks on the phone at the Airbnb office headquarters in the SOMA district of San Francisco, California, U.S., August 2, 2016. REUTERS/Gabrielle Lurie/File Photo

shutterstock_6299166­98.jpg This shutterstock conception photo of BANGKOK - DEC 16: Unidentified vendors serve food to customers at a streetside restaurant on Dec 16, 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. Government figures indicate 20,000 registered street vendors in Bangkok. Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK. [06OCTOBER2017 FEATURES LIFE]

Bangkok’s infamous party scene faces strict regulations, including a long-standing 2am curfew that is only recently being enforced. Picture: SCMP

Philippines: workers on tourist island Boracay fear paradise will be lost with closure

The Philippine government has prepared 2 billion pesos (US$38.4 million) for a ‘calamity fund’ for workers in Boracay. But will it help?

Tourists take a ride on a motorboat to Boracay from Caticlan jetty port, in Philippines, April 8, 2018. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

A surfing rental worker waits for customers along the beach on Boracay. Photo: Reuters

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Also, some ill-considered advice from Thai authorities ahead of this week’s Songkran celebrations


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Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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Destinations known

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Destinations known | Boracay closure highlights ugly side to tourism boom in Southeast Asia

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Also, some ill-considered advice from Thai authorities ahead of this week’s Songkran celebrations

A load of rubbish

Destinations known | Boracay closure highlights ugly side to tourism boom in Southeast Asia

Also, some ill-considered advice from Thai authorities ahead of this week’s Songkran celebrations