We’re introducing a new section on Visit Sunny Chernobyl today. (That’s not the royal “we” there, by the way. It’s the optimistic “we”.) Every regular traveler (regular in that they would prefer to avoid toxic sludge, radiation, etc, while on vacation) has a list, or an idea of a list, of places he or she would like to visit. As often as not, the list has precious little to do with where a person actually will travel, but it’s still nice to have the list as an ideal. And the pollution tourist is no different. Yes, I have a list. And I’m going to reveal that list here. Gradually. Post by post. When I feel like it. A few of the places I’ve had in the back of my mind for years. Others are the product of recent eureka moments, or have been suggested by friends.
Thus is born the Destinations section of our humble site. (If you can think of a name that sounds even more like a section of Parade magazine, please let me know.) These will be the posts that explore the pollution tourist’s dream vacations. And though I fully intend to visit all these places myself in the months and years ahead, I’ve got special prizes for any person out there who first gets to any of our featured Destinations and sends me some photos and a report.
Anyway. There’s been a heat wave in New York City. A sultry (or, if you like, oppressive) closeness hangs in the air, and whatever you’re doing, you find yourself suddenly sweatier than you had expected. The spring is out of Spring’s step. Actually let’s face it, Spring isn’t stepping at all anymore. It’s stopped in its tracks, stunned and overtaken, undone by the heat. The euphoria that came with the end of Winter is long gone, and there’s a bit of dread about the hot months unfolding before us, a yin-dread that fits perfectly hand in hand with the yang-dread you get on a cold November day when you see Winter stretching out in front of you.
In short, it’s Summer. And so unless you’re a communist or something, it’s time to think about the beach.
The main problem with the beach, aside from all that sand and water and sun, of course, is the presence of so many other people. And for some reason, beaches just shouldn’t have too many other beachgoers around. No beach, whether it be on Long Island or in the Caribbean, is ever advertised as having more than, say, three people on it, and one of those people is supposed to be you, looking much better than you actually do in a bathing suit. (The other two people allowed on advertising beaches are attractive, sexually available members of the opposite sex.) These idealized beaches are completely pristine, their sands virginally white, their waters a supernatural indigo unseen even in Oliver Sacks’s weirdest acid trip.
Reality usually diverges from this ideal, naturally, and the crowded, trash-strewn mediocrity of most beaches is the counterpoint to every magazine ad you’ve ever seen for the Bahamas. The idea of the pristine beach depends for its allure on our memories of sullied beaches, in the sort of structuralist codependency that used to turn college students on. I once saw a beach that managed to be both pristine and sullied at once. It was near Pondicherry, on the southeast coast of India. It was perhaps the most beautiful beach I’d ever been to, with miles of smooth sand and warm water. But then I noticed it was scattered with all kinds of shit. Literally shit. Maybe not all kinds, though—it was pretty much just human shit. The beach, though coveted by foreigners for its picturesque beauty, was valued locally for its usefulness as a toilet, and there were little bowel-ziggurats everywhere you looked. It was a nasty disappointment, unless you understood that the shit was actually guarding that beach, driving the crowds away like a little army of plucky brown sentinels. Standing there, surrounded by the morning bowel movements of an entire community, I realized that the problem with dirty beaches is not that they’re dirty, but that we wish they were clean.
Ok, I’m digressing. This whole post could have read, “Screw Cancun, I’m going to Sitakunda.” (more…)